- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Pan Books; New edition edition (9 April 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330353055
- ISBN-13: 978-0330353052
- Product Dimensions: 19 x 13 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 810,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Examines the revolution in electronic communications. This book explores the social and financial consequences of this change and should help people to take advantage of its opportunities and avoid being destroyed by its impact.
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First Sentence
The coming of the year 2000 has haunted the Western imagination for the past thousand years. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The coming of the year 2000 has haunted the Western imagination for the past thousand years. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"The Sovereign Individual" is the most insightful book on "Future History", i.e. attempted prediction of the near future, that I have seen. It describes how the advent of cyberspace will undermine the power of our current nation-states, and how wealthy people, possibly including large parts of the upper-middle class, will shun the tax-happy nation-states and live "off-shore", i.e. in any jurisdiction that suits them, typically small countries such as can be found in the Caribbean. By the same token, a lot of businesses will move their head offices and many of of its other funcions based on cost/benefit, where cost of labour and taxation will be major factors, alhough not the only ones. An increasing number of activities can truly be performed without physical presence, as the world's work becomes increasingly intellectual. My own example of an early adaptor of this method would be Science Fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, who lives and writes tax-free in Sri Lanka.
Fundamentally, this trend to the "off-shore" will capitalise on an emerging free market in sovereignty, i.e. the provision of government services such as defence, police and court system. The likely result of this market will be that large scale support of unprofitable activities, such as massive transfer payments to nominally or factually poor people, will become increasingly rare, as those govenments that focus on protection will be able to offer a lower price. Thus, businesses and wealthy individuals will simply settle in jurisdictions that have minimal or nonexistent welfare systems.
Another of the major predictions is that as business becomes globalised, wages will tend to equalise between countries, but become less equal between individuals and between types of work. A computer programmer in Estonia will earn wages not very different from one in the City of London (if not, any new hiring will be in Estonia, and they will send their product instantly to London), whereas both may well earn vastly more than any assemply-line worker in Luton or Narva.
The authors predict that the nation-states, in particular those in the industrialized West, i.e. the USA and Western Europe, will undergo severe disruptions, probably including civil unrest, panicked attempts at taxation of anything that moves (and in particular of anything that does not), governments holding as hostages wealthy individuals, and so on (cf. "The Economist", 1997-May-30, cover story "The Vanishing Taxpayer", published AFTER "The Sovereign Individual").
The thing most worth noting is that while the authors show only thinly concealed glee at the non-producers getting cut off from transfer payments and government salaries, several authors with different world views make very similar predictions, although with jeers rather than cheers. Examples are Eugene Luttwak ("Turbo-Capitalism", critical but admitting that the alternatives are often worse); Lester Thurow ("The Future of Capitalism", mostly critical); and William Greider ("One World, Ready or Not", mainly critical). With such a consensus on substance, i.e. actual predictions, I would have to conclude that they are probably right, and I observe that "The Sovereign Individual" makes the strongest and most clear-cut case. Anybody who values their wealth or earning power or even their life should read it!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The authors present a fascinating argument on where they feel society is heading, based on how they see current technology affecting the way we live our lives.
This book takes *big history*, combines it with analysis of contemporary technological advances (esp the internet) and argues that the future will see far more individual liberty than ever before.
The passage of two years since its publication has not undermined their theses at all.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent, well-researched book into the subject of the future. It predicts a decline in the power of indebted governments to tax and control our lives, mainly due to globalisation and the internet. They may well be right longer-term, but for now, their shorter-term prediction of governmental attempts to maintain and strengthen their control, swimming against the tide, have proved highly accurate, as has their predictions on the decline of national currencies and the strength of gold and silver as stores of wealth.
My only criticism is that it drags on for too long. What it describes could have been said more clearly and concisely in a book half the size. Well worth the read though, and maybe one to prepare ourselves for in future.
My only criticism is that it drags on for too long. What it describes could have been said more clearly and concisely in a book half the size. Well worth the read though, and maybe one to prepare ourselves for in future.
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