The Sovereign Individual (Hardcover)

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!

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.

The presentation style is mightily irritating -- several ill-disguised rants on every page along the lines of "we told you so", "when the rest of the world ridiculed us, who were the ones that were right after all...?", "we pointed this out as early as in 1994, but did people listen to us? Oh no.". If you can tolerate the rant and self-righteousness, you have a first-rate book with a frightening view of where we are heading, and no reason not to believe the conclusions.

Highly recommended, mightily irritating.