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Introduction
The introductory
chapter and Book One traced the origins and development of human
society and the State, and outlined the forces which are tending
to undermine the power of the State over the lives of individuals;
globalization and the Internet
being foremost among these.
This chapter
focuses on how the nation state is likely to adapt as its traditional
control over citizens is threatened during the next fifty years
by shrinking revenues and the growing role of alternative, more
human-scale models for its current functions, many of them orchestrated
through the Internet or provided by globalized organizations.
The
Individual And The State
Individuals
perceive the State, or more generally, governance of their behaviour,
through the interface of law. This is an entirely
non-physical process unless or until an individual, after a transgression,
real or imagined, falls into the physical clutches of an enforcement
agency such as the police.
A normal,
law-abiding citizen receives information about the legal and regulatory
structures within which life is to be lived from innumerable sources,
but certainly including parents and other teachers, her peers, books,
newspapers, radio, television and movies;
and increasingly from the Internet.
This varied
regulatory diet has a great range of origins - village or town authority,
regional authority, national authority, supra-regional authority
(such as the European Union), global rule-making bodies (such as
the International Olympic Committee), churches, professional associations,
private clubs or associations (eg your tennis club), even cultural
norms without any particular organizational nexus.
Individuals
do not in the normal course of life make conscious
distinctions between the origins of the rules they adhere to; this
is a process that is carried out unconsciously,
and it has a great deal to do with internal
knowledge of group membership, as explained in the Introduction.
There
can be conflicts between group memberships, and these sometimes
require conscious decision between conflicting rules, or at least
conscious awareness of a decision that has, perhaps, been made unconsciously.
For example, traders selling meat in imperial measures (by the pound)
in the UK in the 1980s were faced with EU regulation requiring them
to sell their meat in kilos. While most traders meekly made the
change, for some of them the conflict between two different sets
of equally prescriptive rules was very difficult and caused great
emotional stress, to the point that they were prepared to be fined
or even go to prison rather than accept the new regulations.
Such conflicts
are rare, however. That is why they are newsworthy when they do
occur. For the most part, people do accept sets of rules that are
presented to them in an apparently authoritative way, without enquiring
too deeply into their legitimacy. This tendency to conform has evolutionary
fitness, emerging as hierarchical group-centred living became the
norm. 'We just did as we were told', is a frequent cry of humans
who are accused of breaking some law or principle of which they
were, or claimed to be unaware.
If nation
state rules have been pre-eminent in the last 200 or 300 years,
this is because people's lives have been lived in a 'nation state'
environment, physically resident for most of the time in a nation
state, obliged to fight for it on occasion, speaking its language,
and for the last 100 years educated, healed, married and buried
by it. Part I of the book showed that this state of affairs is a
relatively recent arrival in the course of human history, and that
there is nothing whatever in the human psyche
to require an organization on the scale of the nation state to oversee
it. On the contrary, the nation state can be seen as a perversion
on a giant scale of the 'Fathers', the group-centred
mechanism that evolved to provide an explicitly moral
basis for human society.
Part One
of the book has also described how great tranches of business and
even personal life are coming under the sway of international or
global organizations which provide rule-based codes of conduct.
These codes, since they are often delivered with the active involvement
of nation states, are readily accepted by individuals. Paradoxically,
they are also accepted by nation states, even though each new global
'code of conduct' is another nail hammered into the coffin of the
hegemony of the state.
The
Shape of World Government To Come
There
are very significant dangers to the evolving 'New World Order' which
is the subject of this section; these are dealt with at length in
Chapter Ten: 'Gaia and other global stoppers'.
The remainder of this insouciant section gaily assumes that the
dangers will be avoided.
The models
of world government to be found in science fiction or utopian (or
dystopian) works of political philosophy routinely assume some sort
of over-arching power structure equipped with formidable and extremely
intrusive enforcement powers.
At
present that seems a most improbable outcome of the globalization
process. Book One will hopefully have demonstrated even to the most
rabid anti-globalizer that the global governance model so far expressed
in an overwhelming proportion of global organizations is multilateral.
That is
to say, the membership of organizations like the United
Nations, the IMF, the WTO,
and other candidates for a role in global governance is composed
of nation states who are fiercely defensive of their individual
sovereignty. Members are usually able to de-rail offensive proposals
either on their own or in regional or other combinations. Some private
international organizations are even democratic to outward appearance,
although it might be more accurate to regard them as oligarchic
in nature.
As long
as nation states have divergent national interests, the multilateral
model seems highly likely to prevail. Divergences may be economic
(often based on climate), developmental (as in such classificatory
descriptions as 'LDDCs'), or specialist (based on affirmative action
programs such as that of Ireland in ICT). Nothing at all in the
current global situation suggests that there will be any reduction
in inter-national economic competition in the foreseeable future.
It is
evident that, the more multilateral organizations dominate international
affairs, the more difficult it is for any one country, however large
and rich, to opt out. It is true that at present we have the spectacle
of the United States, the world's only superpower,
as is so often said, thumbing its nose at the Kyoto Treaty, and
refusing to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal
Court, along with some other international organizations. But the
US has had a long-time internationalist orientation, conveniently
ignored by the Bush-bashers. For every treaty that the US selfishly
ignores, there are another 20 that it accepts; and no country has
done more to initiate multilateral trade deals.
As is
to be explored, there are real dangers to the oncoming world order,
but they don't include the nightmare of a rogue nation forcibly
imposing itself on sheep-like other nations that have ditched their
independent armies. The travails of the UN
and NATO in trying to assemble armies for policing or peace-keeping
purposes in such places as the Balkans and Afghanistan, and the
desperate attempts of Iran and North Korea to get the bomb, show
that how that will play in the future. Countries will abandon almost
anything - their currency (France), their language (Ireland), their
laws (lithuania) - but they won't easily abandon their armies, although
new states that emerge as a result of popular pressure for local
autonomy may sometimes feel secure enough in the new world order
to resist the temptation to build armies.
So what
will be left to countries? Part One set out to show that the regulation
of most aspects of cultural, economic and fiscal affairs will become
global over a time-scale of twenty to thirty years. Certainly by
2050 it will be very surprising if there is more than marginal national
involvement in the regulation of football, bandwidth, accounting
fraud, genetic manipulation, sales taxes, Internet
access or equity investment (to pick a few areas out of many). Of
course, nation states will retain most of their powers and their
position of authority in respect of their residents, will continue
to collect local taxes, deliver local services and will 'police'
their territories on behalf of a range of global organizations;
but they will no longer be perceived as being in pre-eminent authority
over human affairs.
To answer
the question more fully, it may be best to look towards competition
between countries.
Competition
Between Nation States
There
are real respects in which countries can compete with each other
- geographic, developmental and specialist - as noted above. There
is however another dimension of inter-country competition which
will become important, and that is the competition for tax-paying
residents. As explained in Chapter Three, Fiscal Globalization,
the increasing burden of taxation in the 20th century led to the
emergence of 'escape routes' both for companies and individuals
through 'offshore' and other low-tax structures;
and the attempts of high-taxing countries to head off the escapees
have been largely futile. This process is accelerating, and the
high-taxing, populous countries will be left with expensive welfare
support systems but with fewer and fewer taxpayers who are willing
to pick up the tab.
One of
the most salient features of countries' economic well-being over
the next 50 years will therefore come to be the state of their welfare
systems. With some individual differences, most countries are starting
from the same point: near-bankrupt state pension schemes; lengthening
life expectancy; diminishing proportions of wage-earners to pensioners;
increasing demands on health, education and welfare provision. By
and large, their response to this oncoming problem so far has been
to increase taxes; but that process is reaching its limits.
Welfare
systems, now nearly universal in the developed world, were one of
the most recent adventures of the nation state onto the turf of
private, usually collective provision. State education is barely
100 years old, while state health schemes are even younger. The
enormous expense and parlous state of these public systems provides
a vivid demonstration of the unfortunate consequences of detaching
the provision of personal economic goods from the local, human-scale
organisations that had evolved in response to demand. They display
'the tragedy of the commons' writ large, among their other failings.
Most people
are dissatisfied with State provision of education, health, unemployment
insurance and retirement benefit. As they become richer and more
mobile, and nation-based schemes become less appropriate for them,
they will jump at the chance of making individual arrangements,
or joining collective schemes tuned to the needs of small groups
of users.
Large
parts of the provision of welfare will become a private matter for
increasing numbers of people over the next 30 years. While nation
states continue to use 'pay as you go' models for the financing
of welfare benefits (amazingly, even for pensions, which is most
improvident behaviour in the face of lengthening life-spans) richer
people already make their own arrangements for most aspects of welfare.
The visible evidence of this is a huge pile of benefits-related
assets in the form of investment funds and insurance company or
bank capital. These assets, often held in low-tax areas or in 'pass-through'
funds, are used to finance retirement goods such as real estate
or pensions, as well as being used to secure life-style levels prior
to retirement and to pay for health-care.
No-one
is quite able to measure the mountain of personal wealth or its
growth rate, but such evidence as there is points to growth rates
in terms of the numbers of wealthy people and their total assets
which utterly eclipse general rates of economic or population growth.
Unless something happens to unbalance this equation, and it is hard
to see what that something might be, a time will come when nation
states experience reducing demands on welfare provision simply because
there are so many rich people around. This will be the situation
in the second half of the 21st century. But we have to get there
from here!
Between
2030 and say 2050, there will be an intermediate phase, in which
people are highly mobile, but still demanding in welfare terms,
and nations will compete for them. Of course, for there to be competition,
there must be alternatives for the consumer. A Serbo-Croat-speaking
national of Serbia has few of those at present in terms of where
to live. But Serbia will join the European Union
in time; universal language translation software
will be widely used from about 2020; and most young people, even
in Serbia, are learning English anyway.
People
in many developed parts of the world are already more fortunate,
especially if their mother countries had colonies or empires. Americans,
Canadians, Australians, French, German, Spanish and the British
have considerable freedom to wander. People from less developed
regions are less free, indeed, but many of them become economic
migrants, as has always been the case. Of course, wherever you come
from, if you have money you can go and live anywhere you want except
for the Vatican, perhaps, and even that can probably be arranged.
The rapid
development of 'offshore' during the last
50 years points the way in terms of human mobility, at least among
economically well-off individuals. Survey after survey in high-tax
countries shows that high proportions of people either would like
to or are actively planning to move elsewhere - the 'elsewhere'
usually being a low-tax area and often warmer as well.
It's a
complicated picture at present. Cold, over-taxed people from Canada
go to Florida or Barbados. Retirees from Yorkshire go to Cyprus.
lithuanians will flock to the UK when they're allowed to. Russians
go almost anywhere else once they can afford it. Tajiks go to Moscow
even though they get dumped on by the Militsiya (police). The Chinese
set up International Business Companies in the British Virgin Islands,
'just in case'.
Most of
the original low-tax countries - usually small islands - are overcrowded,
and have set up economic barriers to new entrants. But more, mid-sized
countries come along to soak up demand: Costa Rica, Belize, Ireland,
Cyprus, Estonia, Botswana, for instance.
At least
in the developed world, that will be the picture for the next half-century.
As soon as they are able to, people from the cold, highly-taxed
northern countries will move to the warmer, less-taxed countries,
and this competition, at least as regards tax rates, will only intensify.
It is already very intense for corporation
tax, since companies are much more mobile than people. There has
been a steady reduction in corporation tax rates worldwide ever
since 1975, when they reached their amazing peak of 50% in places
such as the UK and the US. Nowadays, 30% is regarded as high. People
(and their tax rates) will follow the lead of companies.
Mobile
companies and mobile people spell losses for tax collectors, besides
complication, itself expensive, and their response so far has been
two-fold: on the one hand to be repressive, with anti-avoidance
legislation, Controlled Foreign Corporation and Transfer Pricing
rules; and on the other hand to be responsive to demand through
Double Tax Avoidance Treaties. However, these latter are highly
bureaucratic.
The
Globalization Of Taxation
As foreshadowed
in Chapter Three, at some point in the next 20 years there will
be a move towards global taxation standards. For companies, this
process is already well under way, in the European
Union with the Commission's intention to introduce a harmonized
tax base (ie the rules under which taxable income is calculated)
and globally with the rapprochement of IASB and GAAP, amounting
to a coming together of Europe and the US. Tax rates are another
matter. Countries won't readily give up their power to vary tax
rates - already one of the few economic levers left to them; so
rates will become one of the primary instruments of international
fiscal (economic) competition.
There
is a considerable body of opinion in favour of complete abolition
of corporation tax. The ease with which an international company
can escape or reduce taxes, combined with the need for countries
to attract employment, will continue to drive a 'race to the bottom'
for corporation tax. It would not be surprising to see it disappear
altogether, well before 2050.
For people,
fiscal globalization will be slower, but it will still happen. At
first, perhaps, through the tax treatment of investment (gradually,
all investment intermediaries will become tax-transparent); then
through harmonization of retirement provision internationally (it
is a real outrage that countries undervalue or ignore retirement
contributions made by their citizens in other places). Finally,
but not perhaps before 2030, countries will agree on harmonized
rules for personal income tax, under which
global income will be apportioned between them based on the amount
of time a person has spent in each country. Evidently, such a system
would be transparent for the tax-payer, and would allow inter-country
competition based on tax rates.
Countries
will not willingly agree to this system; but as individuals and
their investments become more mobile they will have no choice. Initially,
of course, the system will only apply among a smallish group of
advanced nations (perhaps through the OECD),
but eventually it will spread to all countries.
There will be a global
currency and the World Bank will control it.
There will be world-wide insurance for health-care, pensions etc,
and such 'social' benefits will increasingly be provided by global,
private companies. By 2050, therefore, countries will come to compete
in terms of the quality of life, law and order,
planning and zoning, 'culture', and other
non-economic goods. If they overspend, they will be shunned by residents
and will lose tax income.
By 2050 there will
be no visa boundaries to travel or residence; it's inevitable of
course that individuals will have tamper-proof biometric identification.
That will probably be the case by as early as 2020 for international
travellers.
Models
of Global Governance
It is
easy to see that global organizations will take over the management
of most aspects of human governance, but there are question marks
over the political form that they should take.
It is
a frequently heard criticism that existing organisations of global
governance lack democratic legitimacy, and at first glance this
appears to be objectively true. Almost all of the really powerful
global organizations - the OECD, the UN, the
WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, the IOC
- have nation states as their members or contracting parties. They
are democratic only in the sense that those member states are themselves
democratic, which is true of most but not all of them. And it is
far-fetched to suggest that an American citizen has any tiniest
shred of involvement in the doings of, for instance, the WTO. To
be fair, in the US in particular, there is some
political resonance in questions such as the funding of the OECD,
but it is limited to the Beltway. Your average Kansas City, Mannheim
or Delhi resident has probably never heard of the OECD.
It's also
an issue that the 'multilaterals' are monopolies. Nation states
have been good at competing with one another, but tt's a curiosity
of the modern world that, other than in economic achievement, competition
(even the little remaining competition between nations, which may
have been driving social evolution) is being legislated away by
the globalization process. Nowadays it is 'managed' competition.
Worse yet, the leadership of some of the key international organisations
could almost be described as oligarchic (the International Olympic
Committee, for instance). The leadership appointment processes for
the IMF, the United Nations, the OECD and the WTO are certainly
not transparent. They are not quite as opaque as the appointment
of a new Pope, but for the casual observer, there is not much in
it.
It's not
easy to see how things could be very different. It seems absurd
to suggest that anything resembling elective democracy could operate
in the selection of a boss for a global organization among the 8
billion - soon to be 20 billion - human beings who are affected
by its workings, at least given the present methods that are used
to conduct elections, and the almost complete ignorance of most
individuals about the organizations concerned. However, both of
those situations may change in future. The
Internet is perfectly suited to conducting very wide-ranging polls
(it's full of them, actually); and it is also likely that knowledge
about global governance will come to be a prominent part of future
educational curriculae, not to mention
the role that the Internet itself will play in educating its users
on such subjects. But we are talking 20 years for the Internet to
come to function as a channel for focusing informed, global opinion
on governance issues; and it may never be more than a partial help.
Pending
the birth of a Greek-style global democracy, we are probably stuck
with the present system, although one can imagine improvements,
particularly as regards transparency. Surely no one will seriously
suggest introducing competition into global governance (wars
could be seen as a kind of competition between nation states, but
they don't do much good for the poor souls who inhabit them). Two
United Nations in competition with each other
would be as much a recipe for disaster as two equally sovereign
governments in one country. That is usually called a civil war.
The opponents
of such organizations as the IMF, the OECD and the WTO are probably
influenced as much by a perceived lack of transparency in their
proceedings as by disagreement with their fundamental goals. Perhaps
there is a place for an international Code of Conduct for the Governance
of Global Organizations? It would have to have a rule-based multi-nation
structure (like the WTO and not like the IMF), and would focus on
the transparency of its client organizations, ensuring adequate
leadership selection procedures, reporting on alleged fraud or maladministration,
criticizing abuses such as the OECD's notorious wine cellar (how
dare they drink Chateau Margaux at your expense?) and the like.
Currently there is no body to investigate or control the behaviour
of the global organizations, which not surprisingly get out of line,
and then investigate problems internally, which lacks credibility.
The United Nations has been damaged by the oil-for-food scandal,
and its own, internal investigation was always going to look like
a whitewash. The Global Court Of Governance Auditors (GCOGA) - you
read it here first!
In fact,
the need for a global auditing function is an idea whose time has
come. Matsushita, Schoenbaum and Mavroidis
1 suggest the creation of a peer review
group in the WTO 'that would examine reports
of the Appellate Body, criticize them if there is any problem of
interpretation and periodically publish the results'. So far, so
good, but the review group needs to be external, not internal. The
GCOGA would have sections for each significant global body, completely
transparent procedures, and an Appeal Tribunal.
What
Is Left For Nation States?
Robert
Cooper 2 portrays
the nation state as in decline. 'Post-modern' nation states (mostly
in Europe) are no longer interested in aggressive expansion; instead
they practice open-ness and rely on treaties to guarantee their
integrity as states. Other states are at earlier stages of evolution.
And as described in Chapter Two, many cohesive, cultural
groups such as the Scottish, the Basques or the Kurds are likely
to achieve (or reclaim) national identity during the first half
of the 21st century. But while there will be more countries, they
will have less power.
Nation
states probably reached the apogee of their impact on individual
lives in the middle of the 20th century. Although they now have
incomparably more powerful tools to know about and control individuals
(CCTV, computer data-bases, legitimate or illegitimate recording
of electronic communication) these will come to be deployed, as
we have seen, over an ever-reducing range of activities. Government
has also proven to be spectacularly incompetent in managing and
applying technology, so that the actual level of surveillance or
knowledge of individuals lags far behind what is theoretically possible.
They will catch up, in the end, but by then they will have responsibility
for only a limited range of affairs; their main role will be to
act as the eyes and ears (and sometimes the muscles) of a range
of global agencies.
Subsidiarity,
or the principle that the making and application of laws
should be carried out at the lowest (nearest to the people) level
of government at which it will be effective, is an enshrined principle
of the European Union, if not of many other polities. It runs counter
to the centralizing rendency of most governments, and it would appear
to run counter to the process of globalization. Taken to a logical
conclusion, subsidiarity argues against the existence of national
governments, certainly in a supra-state area such as the European
Union. By 2050, there will be no persuasive argument for retaining
'national' competencies: in most fields things ought to be decided
either at local level or at global level. The same applies in the
USA to state governments. However, no-one expects nation states
to abolish themselves in deference to a philosophical principle,
and it is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
In fact
there is no real tension between globalization
and the principle of subsidiarity. Accountants,
for instance, have a global community of interest, especially if
accounting standards are going to converge internationally, and
there is every reason for their rules to be formed and administered
internationally. On the other hand, the issuance of planning permissions
is clearly something that should take place locally (according to
national or supra-national laws, by all means). However the subject
of planning permission raises other, more global issues such as
environmental rules and the controversial subject of 'human rights'.
Human
Rights In Governance
Human
rights (sigh) are presumably a modern invention. Jeremy
Bentham called them 'nonsense upon stilts'. The only right a human
has is to be human, after all, as the only right an eel has is to
be an eel. But humans are prickly, so that they have acquired (or
invented) rights, and like it or not these rights are now a fixed
part of the landscape. And oh boy but do they change things.
To
be charitable, one could say that humans had to acquire rights in
order to defend themselves against the State, which is non-human,
and if left to its own devices allows rights only to itself. All
human rights cases seem to be between individuals and the State,
rather than between individuals. That immediately
makes them a part of the globalized landscape,
since you will not get very far suing the State from within itself.
True, in common law jurisdictions there is the writ of mandamus
(to force an administrative authority to fulfil its functions as
laid down by law and regulation), but there are not too many successful
prosecutions.
A
Universal Declaration of Human Rights was incorporated in the foundation
documents of the United Nations in 1948, and
therefore all UN member states subscribe to its principles in theory.
But in practice there is no formal mechanism for enforcing the Declaration,
and no court exists to hear cases under the Declaration.
Europe
has gone further. The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights
and Fundamental Freedoms was adopted by the Council of Europe in
1950 and applies in all its member states, which includes all member
states of the European Union and some others
besides, notably Russia.
The
European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg
was created to hear complaints under the Convention, and has acquired
a high profile, especially since it was strengthened in 1998. Member
states or individual citizens can bring cases to the Court; cases
are always directed against one of the member states which are parties
to the Convention.
The
ECHR has been highly successful, if the size of its case load is
any measure. The Court received 5,981 applications in 1998, its
first full year of operation in its new form. By 2005, this number
had risen to 38,000 - a 15% rise over 2004.
The
ECHR is not the only such Court. In November 1969 member states
of the Organization of the American States adopted the American
Convention on Human Rights, which entered into force on July 18,
1978, when a member State deposited the 11th instrument of ratification.
25
American nations have now ratified or have adopted the Convention:
Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile,
Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Granada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras,
Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic,
Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela. No prizes
for noticing who is left out.
The
Convention created two organs to promote the observance and protection
of human rights: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The first one was created in 1959 and entered into force in 1960
when the Council of the OAS approved its Statute and elected its
first members. The Court’s first hearing was held in 1979;
its base is in Costa Rica (a country which, interestingly, has no
army).
It
seems inevitable that the ECHR and the IACHR will be copied in other
parts of the world. Eventually perhaps they will all merge, or perhaps
a global jurisdiction will be created under the United Nations'
Universal Declaration.
Both
the ECHR and the IACHR operate in effect as courts of appeal from
national courts. Although both of them can work at first instance,
it is rare. Both courts and their parent organizations do everything
possible to persuade national judiciaries to give impartial hearings
to cases involving human rights, if only to avoid being swamped
by applications.
The
details of how human rights courts will evolve need not detain us.
What is clear is that by 2050 there will be a global system of human
rights courts, operating under a harmonised set of human rights
principles, which will also apply to national courts. That's almost
the case now, in Europe.
The
corollary is of course that nation states will have lost any power
over the definition and the enforcement of human rights, whatever
those may eventually be defined to be.
Human
Freedoms
It
is but a short step from 'rights' to 'freedoms', or indeed from
'freedoms' to 'rights'. Most national constitutions set out freedoms
which people have, even if these are heavily tramelled by legislation.
The European Union, which established its citizens'
freedoms very clearly in the Treaty of Rome - free mobility of goods,
services, capital and labor - has done a better job of preserving
them than most nation states, with the supra-national European
Court of Justice well to the fore in bashing member states that
transgress the freedoms.
As
a set of operating principles, the freedoms are a lot clearer and
easier to implement than any list of human rights. In fact the two
intersect, and by the time the four freedoms have been robustly
implemented there is not too much missing from most peoples's lists
of human rights. Recent documents of the European Union, and particularly
the Constitution which failed to gain acceptance in 2004, have attempted
to synthesize the freedoms with human rights.
As
with human rights, it is clear that implementation of the four freedoms
on an international level leaves component member states with little
power to legislate in a way that would infringe on the freedoms.
And as with human rights, it seems highly likely that the EU's freedoms
will be imitated in equivalent federal multilateral areas elsewhere
in the world.
Some
sort of combined 'human rights' and 'freedoms' convention or set
of rules will inevitably become guiding global principles well before
2050.
There
is a price to paid by individuals, however,
for their new rights and freedoms, in terms of transparency. The
old bargain between the individual and the State was more or less
'live and let live' - if a person didn't cross the lines set down
by the State, that is didn't break the law, didn't attack the State
or otherwise get noticed, then they were allowed to live their lives
as they chose, and their privacy was guaranteed in most countries
by explict provisions of the law.
In
1950 a normal, law-abiding citizen of a Western country could rely
upon it that their domestic arrangements and their financial affairs
would remain confidential, if that is what they wanted. For all
the hoopla with which privacy laws are brought into being by modern
states, the reality is that there is hardly any left - and it is
going to get worse.
Governments
at various levels defend their assault upon individual privacy,
with more or less justice, as being a response to aggravated levels
of criminal activity, whether it is termed money-laundering
to finance terrorism (today's Aunt Sally for all legislators), identity
fraud made possible by the credit card explosion, or the phishing
which has made the Internet into a minefield
for the unwary.
Innumerable
public servants have the right to enter your house; you must half
undress and present fingerprints or iris prints in order to board
an aircraft; the minutest transaction with banks, lawyers or accountants
is liable to be reported to the authorities on a whim; and if you
are so foolish as to pretend to academic successes you never had,
you are likely to be hounded from your job and public life as if
you were a serial rapist.
Civil
liberties activists do what they can to moderate the onrush of scrutiny;
but the fact is that the case is already lost. Despite all precautions
a person may take, the details of their lives will become increasingly
available to all and sundry. This is perhaps one of the less welcome
results of the 'information explosion' and the Internet. But we
have to learn to live with it.
The
way to avoid spam is for your computer to know for certain who is
writing to you; and the way to contact another person without getting
chewed up in their spam filter is for their computer to know for
certain who you are. White lists and so on can be somewhat helpful,
but they don't allow for ad hoc contacts. Transparency is unavoidable.
Once it exists, an attempted spammer can be punished so horribly
that the practice will die out almost overnight. Transparency does
what it says on the bottle: you have to be who you say you are.
Of
course, the codes of behaviour, the 'know-your-customer' routines,
the standards for iris recognition, the levels of encryption, and
the rest - these will not be national standards. How could that
work? They will have to be international standards, and once again
the poor old nation state - you almost start to feel sorry for it
- will be left out in the cold.
The
dystopian visions of an all-seeing, all-knowing, remote and hostile
State - as in 1984 or Brave New World are however wide of the mark.
As has been seen, the rule-making on both sides
of the equation, for transparency on the one side, and for human
rights and freedoms on the other, will be in the hands of multilateral
bodies, while dispute resolution will equally be subject to international
juridical process.
The
Individual In A Globalized World
This
chapter has outlined some of the weaknesses of the nation state
model which will cause it to be replaced as the dominating principle
in the social consciousness of an individual by an understanding
that she exists as a player in infinitely more flexible global surroundings.
The chapters in Book One showed how the transition to global scale,
far from increasing the distance between the individual and the
institutions of governance or rule-setting, will paradoxically have
just the reverse effect. The Internet is seen as being a crucial
instrument in bringing this about, through its ability to facilitate
association - to encourage groups, in other words.
Sitting
at her laptop while on holiday in the Cayman Islands, today's (or
tomorrow's) economic actor can communicate with a group of the other
members of an international share-buying club specializing in feminine
health and beauty companies; can organize the participation of one
of her children in a summer music camp in New England; can continue
an extensive e-mail discussion with a group of intellectual property
lawyers (our actor is one such, herself) aimed at influencing the
next meeting of a sub-Committee of WIPO to change the wording of
a proposed 'fair-use' exemption clause; can visit a user discussion
forum to help a decision about whether to change her health insurance
scheme; and, exhausted, can close down the miserable machine and
thankfully join the rest of her family on the beach, her global
credentials well and truly burnished for the day. Of course, she
will still have her Blackberry with her, just in case . . .
Nowhere
does the nation state feature in this admittedly very partial list
of one individual's social and professional involvements. Every
one of them is centred around a group of people making their own
arrangements within global organizational and cultural structures.
The
next chapter will describe some of the changes likely to take place
to such major cultural institutions as language and education as
the nation state recedes in importance and the new, globalized world
unfolds.
Footnotes:
1.
Matsushita, M, Schoenbaum, T J, and Mavroidis, P C (2006) The
World Trade Organization - Law, Practice and Policy, Oxford
International Law Library
2.
Cooper, R (1997) The Post-Modern State and the World Order,
Demos, London
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