Citizens who thrive in the global society will identify themselves globally. They will make political, social, and economic choices based not on national identity, but on how those choices relate to themselves directly and to people like them around the world.… Nations and corporations who thrive will organize themselves accordingly. They will

The fact that microprocessing helps to liberate and disperse the production process from the fixed sequence of the assembly line greatly reduces the leverage formerly enjoyed by coercive institutions like unions and governments. If the assembly line were like a railroad within factory walls that could easily be captured by a sit-down strike,

The megapolitics of the production process has altered more drastically than most people realize. This change is not yet clearly visible, partly because there is always a lag between a revolution in megapolitical conditions and the institutional changes it inevitably precipitates.

He saw that how violence is organized and controlled plays a large role in determining “what uses are made of scarce resources.”8 Lane also recognized that while production of violence is not usually considered part of economic output, the control of violence is crucial to the economy. The primary role of government is to provide protection against

As right as he was about the importance of complexity, Pagels overlooked the most basic fact of all. When the logic of violence changes, society changes.

Societies that reconfigure themselves to become more complex adaptive systems will indeed prosper. But when they do, they are unlikely to be nations, much less “political superpowers.” The more likely immediate beneficiaries of increased complexity of social systems will be the Sovereign Individuals of the new millennium.

Throughout history, violence has been a dagger pointed at the heart of the economy. As Thomas Schelling shrewdly put it, “The power to hurt—to destroy things that somebody treasures, to inflict pain and grief—is a kind of bargaining power, not easy to use but used often.

Nationalism made it easier to mobilize power and control large numbers of people. Nation-states formed by underlining and emphasizing characteristics that people held in common, particularly spoken language. This facilitated rule without the intervention of intermediaries. It simplified the tasks of bureaucracy. Edicts that need only be promulgated

A relatively small, elite group of rich represent a more coherent and effective body than a large mass of citizens. The small group has stronger incentives to work together. It will almost inevitably be more effective at protecting its interests than will a mass group.