What Happens After the Nation-State?

I was saddened to hear one of my favorite writers died last week. His name was James C. Scott. Have you heard of him? His writing is mostly a critique of state-imposed order and the ways in which groups resist and navigate oppressive systems. Some call him a historian or anarchism. A few of his books really made an impression on me when I read them.

• Seeing Like a State

• The Art of Not Being Governed 

• Two Cheers for Anarchism

One of my favorite books of his is Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. Scott argues that the formation of the first states often involved coercion, loss of freedom, and worsened living conditions for many people compared to their hunter-gatherer ancestors. States would rise and then collapse due to insurrections, plagues, or war. Over and over this pattern would repeat.

His death got me thinking about the current system of governance we all live under. How long will we be living in the Nation-State system? It’s not a silly thought. Sometimes we forget that this is all very new. Countries like Italy or Germany never existed before 1861 & 1871.

Don’t get me wrong, nation-states will not fade away overnight. It most likely won’t happen in our lifetime either. But you can start to see a slow and gradual shift from them. Certain bottom-up forces trending away from the idea of the nation-state system. You can kind of see it already when you travel around the world.

You can see this starting with how globalization and worldwide connectivity erode the concept of the nation-state by diminishing the significance of geographic boundaries and central authority. People look the same. Dress the same. Differences are much less now. Did you see the opening of the Olympics? It takes place in Paris but it could have been New York.

But there’s more trends:

• global depopulation

• mass migration

• remote work

• urbanization

• countries selling passports and visas

• the rise of succesful city-states like Dubai and Singapore

We’re heading somewhere. No one knows where. The technology world thinks we’re heading toward something like the “Network State”.

But I think we’re just going back into a era that will resemble the past. The type of polities we have always lived in. Before the recent invention of the nation-state.

The Nation-State is A New Polity

Taking nation states as a permanent feature of this world is mistaking a short period of history for something that is permanent. Take a look at what modern Germany looked like for most of its history. Something like this. A bunch of local municipalities.

Or it was combined into a regional empire with parts of what we call Italy today or parts of France. A mixture of people who do not share the same language or culture.

This has been a constant process throughout history. Look at Italy a few hundred years ago.

Throughout most of history, the world was made up of numerous small principalities, each with its own ruler, local dialects, and unique currencies. Or sometimes, people lived as part of regional empires that included many diverse groups with whom they had little in common. These empires were governed by emperors who collected taxes, raised armies, and largely left the local populations to their own devices. Sometimes they didn’t even notice when it went away.

The truth the world has always been a mixed system. There were city-states. There were kingdoms. There were regional empires. A little bit of everything. That’s how things have always been. Until a few hundred years ago.

A Short History of the Nation-State

The Treaty of Westphalia, 1648. That's when everything changed, right after one of the deadliest wars in Europe. It established territorial sovereignty and non-interference in domestic affairs. This is where the nation-state concept began, its foundation set, reshaping the future.

@olimould

Do you know your history of the nation state and the idea of sovereignty? #geography #history #sovreignty #borders #nation #europe #education #fyp

Before the Treaty of Westphalia, the concept of nation-states did not exist in principle, and it wasn't until the American Revolution in 1776 that it emerged in practice. Prior to this, there were city-states, kingdoms (territories governed by sovereigns), and empires.

The French Revolution of 1789 was the next great step to modern nationalism. It pushed ideas of citizenship, national identity, and popular sovereignty, shaping the modern nation-state. By the time of the Congress of Vienna, there were only two nation-states: the United States and Switzerland.

It wasn't until the Greek revolutionary war in 1821 that we see modern nation-states emerge—states for specific people, like the Greeks, speaking one language, one religion, one culture with borders. Minorities within these territories become assimilated to this identity, regardless of language or religion. This is how Mediterranean cosmopolitanism died.

The nation-state, a homeland for a people, what we call nationalism today. After that, every group on earth demands their own state. That’s how we end up where we are today.

In This Newsletter

1) Why Do I Think Nation-States May Slowly Fade Away? Let’s examine the trends eroding the concept of the nation-state.

2) Would You Like to Be a Member of A City-State? Do you think you’d be happier if you were a citizen of a city instead of a state?

The Great Population Collapse

The world is shrinking fast. People around the world have decided to have less children. We are entering a different epoch now.

The reason? It’s not money. Hungary has given massive subsidies and tax breaks to parents but their population keeps dropping. The reason we can’t stop population decline is because the problem isn’t financial. People just prefer not to.

This is going to be a big problem for many countries. Picture this: a dwindling population means fewer workers, less economic productivity, a nosedive in innovation. National economies start feeling the squeeze. The young are outnumbered by the old, bearing the weight of paying for the bloated social welfare programs. Taxes go through the roof, and the economy flatlines. National identities?

Things may start to unravel. You’re paying crushing taxes and slogging through a stagnant economy—for who exactly? People miles away who don't give a damn about you? Eventually, you'll see people drifting away from national identity, gravitating towards local or regional cultures and interests. National unity takes a hit. Welcome to the new normal.

Mass Urbanization

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