NYT Fears Cypherpunks

[frissell@panix.com (Duncan Frissell)]

The article suggested that unless people turn to the State for protection
from "anarchy" the State will fade.

Here is my argument (recycled from a few years ago) as to why State power is
fading:

I expect that State authority will continue to weaken over the next few
years for the following reasons:

1)      The ruled outnumber the rulers.

2)      The ruled outmass the rulers.

3)      Traditionally, the rulers used a number of techniques to maintain 
        their rule:
        
        a)      Ideology of acquiescence and consent - The will of God, 
                tradition, the will of the people, 'you can't fight City 
                Hall,' Death and Taxes, The Government is All of Us, etc.
                                              
        b)      The application of superior mobility and organization - 
                we are everywhere, omniscience, omnipresence, etc.
                
        c)      Point force.  A mass of armed men in the field.  'Reduce 
                the city.  Leave no stone standing upon stone and sow 
                the ground with salt.'              

4)      The effectiveness of the above require an ignorant, docile, 
        immobile, and uncritical population:
        
        a)      Respect for authority is on a rapid downward trend.  
                Disobedience is widespread.  One-third to one-half of 
                the housing units in Nassau and Suffolk counties are 
                illegal "in-law" apartments.  Seventy-five percent of 
                those hiring domestic workers in the US do not comply 
                with tax and employment laws.  Hundreds of thousands of 
                assault rifle owners in New Jersey and California have 
                not turned in their guns.  I see no examples of any 
                increase in respect for state authority.
                
        b)      The mobility and organization of bureaucratic 
                organizations is now less than the average private 
                organization.  Nation states are still geographically 
                bound, we are not.  The individual or small group has 
                always had better organization than the State - he/it 
                has just had less power.     
        
        c)      Point force only works against concentrated opponents.  
                It is useless against mass movements of goods nd people 
                like the market unless a totalitarian clampdown is 
                used.  If movement continues, State power is lost.
   
5.      Freedom is not only an ideology, it is also what you get when 
        people make relatively unconstrained choices.  Even the most 
        broken slave makes choices.  When a modern, technologically 
        advanced, mobile people makes choices, they can overwhelm control
        mechanisms.  All they have to do is *choose*.  They need not be
        ideologically committed libertarians.
        
6.      Is there immigration control if millions of immigrants are on 
        the march (here *and* in Europe)?  Is there gun control if the 
        number of guns possessed by the population (here *and* in Europe) 
        continues to increase.  If the amount of the world's wealth that 
        is legally or illegally outside of the tax system increases, is 
        taxation succeeding?
        
7.      Predictions.  Per capita gun ownership will continue to increase 
        in all of the OECD countries as it has for years.  Legal and 
        illegal immigrants as a percentage of total population will 
        continue to grow.  The percentage of the Gross World Product 
        that does not flow through the coffers of the world's States
        will continue to grow as it has for the last ten years.

8.      Unless the above trend lines reverse and the "coercive sector" 
        regains some moral authority freedom of choice will continue to 
        grow.  For example, if gun ownership per capita continues to 
        grow, at some point everyone who wants a gun will have one.  No 
        gun control.         

9.      Controlling people is difficult.  It has all of the normal 
        problems of hydrology with the added complication that in this 
        case the "water" is intelligent.  Controlling smart, rich, well-
        equipped people is a doomed occupation.  Unless they can figure 
        some way to chain us back in the fields, they're doomed.         

DCF

   
"Though he may be poor
He will never be a slave"