The situation in the U.S. and most “developed countries” is precisely the same as in companies in “mature industries" which felt themselves so secure they had no need to innovate or worry about competition. I recall a senior executive from AT&T in the mid 1970s, when the “Bell Bill" proposed to make Ma Bell a recognised “natural monopoly”, forecasting that some time in the mid 21st century long distance calls would cost no more than local calls. Well, here we are, and they don’t, and we also have picturephone and video pocket communicators. But no thanks to AT&T. No, what happened is that disgruntled people dissatisfied with the rate at which the monopolists dribbled out innovation quit their jobs and started companies to render the dinosaurs impotent and obsolete.
Why doesn’t anybody think about this when it comes to countries? The Network State provides a guide how to do to the sclerotic welfare/warfare/funny money Westphalian nation states what packet switching technology did to the phone company.
The U.S. Declaration of Independence includes its own “flight termination system”:
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
This is often assumed as requiring a rebellion to overthrow an existing government and, indeed, that is often what has happened. But that needn’t be the case. Just as a few bright people walking out of a senescent corporate monolith to set up shop in a store-all down the street have brought down seemingly eternal “natural monopolies”, people simply saying “I do not consent” and building alternatives to the institutions of serfdom that work better for those who voluntarily opt in to them can bring down continental-scale, railroad era, resource extraction empires.
We already have an alternative (actually, dozens) to their funny money. We have communications they cannot intercept, block, or impersonate. We have means of developing consensus and forming communities beyond their control. And they know this. And they are afraid. And they should be.
We need fear legacy coercive governance no more than we used to fear the Phone Company or IBM. It’s obsolete, and just hasn’t realised it yet. Let’s move up the date when everybody knows its age has passed.