The withering state

Along with the globalisation of culture^[1], we are witnessing the globalisation of unaccountable power and privilege, with a concomitant withering away of the power of ostensibly sovereign states.  No nation today can resist the need to become part of the international economic community^[2], and admission requires relinquishing considerable sovereignty. 

Once enmeshed in the international economy, even quite large nations can be brought to their knees by overnight movements on the international financial markets over which they have no control. 

Those who nominally manage the economies of nation states have very limited room to manoeuvre.  They need to make sure that their published economic indicators do not hit any narrowly defined "Sell, sell, sell!" trigger points.  Economic, and, by implication, social policies also need to fall within the bounds of the economic orthodoxy on which the reef fish of the international financial markets have been fed. 

The growing power of trans-national corporations able to move resources and information between nations almost at will, is also at the expense of State power.

The internationalisation of the economic community and the globalisation of power are increasingly forcing nation-states to co-operate in trading blocs and international fora that constrain national sovereignty.  These trans-national bodies lack the public accountability of many legislatures.  They are also too remote to excite^[3] the attention of the average citizen. 

Within many nation states we are also witnessing a conscious shrinking of the State, in favour of the corporate sector.  Activities and assets formerly under State control have been relinquished or sold to the private sector, in the belief that these could be more efficiently managed there. 

We have seen a proliferation of trans-national non-governmental organisations to address global issues, but many of these entities do not have the holistic remits that our States have, or the means to enforce their policies.

With contemporary communication technology, States are no longer able to manage the information that flows^[4] to their citizens.  National boundaries have become irrelevant and national cultures are being homogenised into self-obsessed consumerism.

The world's handful of media conglomerates have become de facto cultural and moral conditioners of the global population, a role that formerly many states arrogated.

Media conglomerates as moral conditioners are now being displaced by unaccountable blog writers, social media opinion shapers, and "fake news".  The visible Internet and the less visible Dark Web enable the anonymously unkind to twist and entrench the world views of a growing and increasingly radicalised support base.

An uncritical and addicted public hungrily scans the deluge^[5] of digital messages it receives for content bites that reinforce their particular prejudices, and filters out any contrary bites.  It does not matter if a bite is true or false, as long as it is credible and self-affirming to the recipient.  Risible conspiracy theories flourish while truth looks on helplessly.  The mongers of hate, fear and untruth have never so easily been able to pander to our dark side^[6].

Our civilised societies and states function only in a generalised environment of mutual tolerance^[7] and voluntary observance of the rule of law.  The Internet-enabled erosion of truth erodes social cohesion and the civilised State's ability to govern kindly with a light hand.

All these trends have seen a rapid power shift away from the State, for which society has over the centuries developed mechanisms of accountability and constraint, to entities that are largely unaccountable to the public. 

The custody of our values and our lives is passing from the imperfect care of our nation-states to a headless global juggernaut driven by profit and prejudice.  In effect, we are witnessing a growing lawlessness, where increasing aspects of our lives are falling outside of reason and the rule of law^[8]. 

The privileged, the criminal, the terrorist, the irrational, the self-serving, and the faceless unkind are increasingly trans-national, operating with apparent ease and impunity on the global high seas, beyond the reach of our State-based law enforcement systems.

Impunity feeds on itself.  Disrespect for others and for the law spreads and deepens.  Corrupution becomes normal and necessary.  Crime pays better than work.

Globally, as a reaction, we are seeing a rise in unkind and intolerant conservative nationalism^[9], with States reasserting themselves under populist demagogues seeking to undermine democracy and to entrench their power.  We have seen this in the USA, Russia and Argentina for example.

But just as the unkind and the profit-driven can harness the power of technology and act globally and nationally, so can we...

Those of us who want to be kind^[10] can awaken, arise, unite and act^[11]. 

During the anarchic times of the European Middle Ages when Nation States were weak or non-existent, trans-national orders dedicated to the promulgation and enforcement of moral codes emerged.  Globally we are now reaching a comparable point at which global orders^[12] of good men and women must emerge to fill the vacuum, and to guard the twilight zone between right and wrong, between truth and untruth, between creation and destruction, between hope and despair, and between civilised survival and a new dark age^[13]. 

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” [Edmund Burke 1729-1797]