At the Edge (11-13 November 1999)

AT THE EDGE
Towards 21st Century Internationalism

TNI 25th Anniversary (1974-1999)

What Future the Nation State?

The future of the 'nation state' seems in doubt. On the one hand, economic, political and cultural globalization is seemingly undercutting the state's ability to function. But is it true that the nation state is weakening? This session discussed how and to what extent the nation state is changing. Is it getting weaker for some and stronger for others? What is the relationship between nations and the supranational institutions, which are profoundly undemocratic or even anti-democratic? Many states are fractioning often along 'ethnic' expressing a particular kind of 'nationalism'. In Europe, some believe that the nation state should be replaced by local states. What role will the nation state play in the next century, and how should we go about strengthening democracy at local, national and supranational levels?

Chairperson: Dan Smith
Speakers: Boris Kagarlitsky, Jochen Hippler, Marcos Arruda,
Tom Nairn

Boris Kagarlitsky: Senior Research Fellow at Institute for Comparative Political Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Co-author ofGlobalization and its Discontents and author ofNew Realism, New Barbarism.

The issue on the minds of many is the question of the impotence of the state in this age of globalization. This is a notion presented by both right and left and in both post-modernist and neo-liberal discourses. Whether we agree or disagree is, frankly, not important. The issue is moot as the real question should address the social and institutional nature of the state. Is the state "weak" when it suppresses the landless peasants in Brazil or striking workers in Russia? Is it strong when it tries to regulate TNCs? These are the real questions. By asking these questions one discovers that the state is not weak but is
in fact becoming more socially privatized by the ruling elites nationally but also transnationally or globally.

Neo-liberalism is becoming hegemonic as it is the dominant ideology of the elites throughout the world. In that sense there is no longer a national bourgeoisies of different countries but rather ruling elites, which are much more integrated structurally, ideologically, politically and alas, globally. Ironically, the most globalised among these elites are the most marginal within each society. So, the most marginal elements of the ruling class dominate every single ruling class. Some years ago, Andre Gunder Frank used the term 'lumpen bourgeoisie' with reference to Latin America. This term can also be used about the countries of the core and center because there are elements of the bourgeoisie, which are dominating the world through TNCs and are also the most disconnected from the particular societies where they first developed. So we can speak about a 'global lumpen bourgeoisie' or 'global financial lumpen bourgeoisie', which to a certain extent has hijacked the state from society, including bourgeois society. Middle class domains are also being hijacked and thus becoming powerless.

The trendy discourse talks about replacing the state with civil society. However, civil society is not possible without a society; and this is not possible without a state. Civil society is just a conjunction between the state and society. We have an arrogant civil society that has developed, very often represented by NGOs and marginal collectives, which do not represent anyone or only a small sector of society and yet tries to speak on behalf of society. This is profoundly anti-democratic. We have to launch democratic struggles not only against the global elites, not only against authoritarian states (and some in Eastern Europe are becoming more and more so), but also against arrogant and unrepresentative civil societies. Arrogant civil society must be replaced by genuine representation of the majority of the people.

The key problem is "Whose state?" Bourgeois democracy was a political system based on social compromise between the ruling class and the majority of society. Neo-liberalism is a dramatic reversal or destruction of the social contract, which is fundamental to the very existence of democracy. It means that the elites who are marginal in relation to societies do not feel obliged to respect the social contract, which was the foundation of democracy.

So, we need not speak about the weakness of the state but rather how the state is being hijacked from societies around the world. We need a new struggle for democracy and new democratic movements, which present a new idea of state institutions and structures. We cannot simply go back to the old democracy of the 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, in many countries there is no history of democracy. In Russia, the state looks very weak up to the moment that it faces a challenge from working people and from social movements. Then it becomes incredibly strong and uses the police and troops against the workers. But that does not mean we have to become supporters of state-less radicalism. We have to fight, not for more state or less state, but for a different state.

Jochen Hippler is a TNI Fellow and former Director. He is an expert on Middle Eastern and Central Asia politics and religious movements, until recently chief-of-staff to the leader of the Green parliamentary fraction in the German Bundestag, and currently a freelance journalist and consultant.

What is the 'nation state'? We know what a 'state' is but the 'nation state' needs defining. There are broadly two ways to define a 'nation'. One is a community of citizens. The other is a community with a common history, culture, language or ethnicity. The term 'nation state' can be just a substitution for the term 'state'. Or, it can emphasis that the nation and the state are a combined entity of common language, ethnicity among people living in one state.

The 'nation state' is a concept first developed in Europe and it is one of the basic achievements of human history in that it created a possibility for democracy, which had not existed before. At the same time, it is one of the greatest dangers of human history because events such as the Holocaust are linked to nation states coming into being in a particular way, implying ethnic purity. This specifically European development of nation states brought about various sub-categories, some of them 'milder' and some, especially those, which came later such as in the case of Italy, more dangerous. In the Third World, the development of nation states was affected by the European model, practically in terms of colonialism and ideologically in terms of Third World intellectuals studying in Europe and becoming infected with European brands of nationalism.

The present, as the past, is full of contradictions. I disagree with Boris Kagarlitsky and think there is a weakening of the state, not just the nation state, but, the state per se, in regard to fulfilling its non-repressive functions. It is obvious that if you weaken the state's ability to do its job in creating public welfare, in developing society, in providing all the positive things that it is supposed to as an agency of society, then people will become unhappy, criticise and even revolt. The increasing weakness is combined with an increase in the repressive apparatus of the state. States are in the process of being restructured so that they are less able to fulfill the constructive, creative processes of statehood and provide better futures for the citizens who are supposedly also building the states through their participation. Meanwhile, the repressive side of statehood is being strengthened.

Everyone is talking about the 'crisis of the state', and in some respects I agree. Some powers which states have had, no matter whether 'nation states' or 'non-nation states' are disappearing. They are being privatised. The powers have not disappeared but they have shifted from the public sector to the private sector and in the perception of the people this means that the powers have disappeared. A second, connected tendency is that they also become more international. The power might still be with public entities such as the World Bank, UN, EU (but which states control these so-called public institutions?), but they are no longer at the level of the nation state. In both cases, the result is that the state is weakened with regard to fulfilling its domestic responsibilities.

The problem is that this is combined with a need for economic problem-solving. Economic problems have not decreased. They have increased. Inequalities are increasing. So just when there is a need for a functioning, productive, collaborative problem-solving public sphere, the capacity of the state is decreasing.

The ideological result is that when the state is not wealthy and stable (which the majority are not), additional socio-economic stress on society is created. This creates conflict. The pie is shrinking while the numbers of people are increasing, which leads to intensified competition for resources. So, under the desperate circumstances that many are in, this tension can lead to violent expressions of competition for resources.

Most of our societies are not 'nation state' societies in the strict sense of the word. Most are
multinational states pretending to be nation states. This means that the socio-economic stress and the increasing competition between groups and classes will be translated in the minds of many people into ethnic or national divisions. Conflict is seen as competition between ethnic groups, etc.

The future of the nation state or state is full of contradictions, but it will be one decided through a battle over democracy. As power is disappearing from the public sphere to multinational and private interests, democracy becomes meaningless. We elect parliaments and governments to do specific jobs like halting unemployment, stopping wars, ensure basic services etc, but these hopes and desires are more often less realised because the power necessary to deliver these jobs has been displaced. The trust in democracy is decreasing because states do not and cannot deliver.

Marcos Arruda is a TNI Fellow and Co-ordinator of Policy Alternatives for the Southern Cone,an NGO in Rio de Janeiro. He is an economist and closely associated with the labour and co-operative movements and serves as an advisor to local governments and the Workers' Party in Brazil.

1. Nation State as an Historical Creation

In history, the existence of the state is related - directly or indirectly - to the prevailing mode of production. It is a supra-structure that lies upon the socio-economic structure. It changes along with the changes occurring in that structure. With the current stage of globalisation, it is again changing, and it is the hegemonic class, which already controls the
state, that is also controlling the change. In my opinion, the state does not tend to disappear as neo-liberal globalisation advances. What is disappearing, if the neo-Keynesian proposals emerging from the World Bank are to prevail, is the welfare
state, the social-democratic state. Other paths for the Nation State do exist for those who believe that capitalism is not the only viable model with which to organise the socio-economy and for those who believe that the neo-liberal, TNC-led globalisation is not the only viable type of globalisation.

2. Nation State in Crisis with neo-liberal Globalisation

The Nation State will continue to be shaken as long as the neo-liberal globalisation persists. The logic of neo-liberal reform is not to do away with the state, but rather to shape it for the role that 'free market' capitalists demand and indeed need it to play. For example:

1. Mitigator and, when necessary, repressor of social unrest
2. Guarantor of market freedom (which in reality means freedom for capital and bonds for labour and for less developed nations)
3. Subsidisor of the private sector with public funds and facilitated contracts, and
4. Legitimator of the subordination of less industrialized economies in globalisation

The evidence that neo-liberal policies and reforms have been a source of impoverishment in both the South and the North is forcing changes of discourse and policy changes. Capitalism is keen to present its contradictions and misdeeds as 'accidents', temporary ordeals that should be attributed to any factor other than its own chrematistic (=concerned with material wealth only), rather than socio-economic (=concerned with the management of the home and its inhabitants) nature and structure. In interventionist cycles, when a crisis arises capitalists attribute it to the lack of sufficient market freedom, and then push for more liberalisation. In liberal cycles, they claim that the cause is lack of state regulation and effective public policies. Thus, they save capitalism from being targeted as the real root cause of the ills of the socio-economy. We are now witnessing the end of a liberal cycle. The question is when and how the people will finally act toward the break up between capitalism and the capitalist state.

3. The Challenge of Democratisation and the Nation State

In my view, the Nation State will be a reality as long as the Nation is a reality. And the Nation is related to at least three elements that are, and will continue to be, part of the contemporary human existence and aspiration namely, territoriality, identity, and sovereignty. As long as the capital/labour split exists, the Nation State as we know it will be required. History shows that the state-centred forms of 'socialism' did not, as promised, contribute to overcoming that split. So the struggle continues to find new, truly effective ways of overcoming that split. Wealth is not produced by owners of capital nor by technology alone, but it is produced by the workers - the collective knowledge and labour of all those who participate in its creation, or whom Marx calls 'the social individual'. If the gains of productivity are to be justly distributed and democratised thus benefiting the whole of society and not only a few, the following conditions must be in place; 1) workers empower themselves economically (by co-operatively gaining control over the means to produce wealth and knowledge) in order to become politically empowered; and 2) a strong, democratised State fully accountable tosociety and serving its needs be in place.

4. Paths Towards the Democratisation of the Nation State

In many countries, popular democratic parties have occupied local and provincial/state governments and are developing creative examples of democratisation of the state. In Brazil, progressive parties have gained control over hundreds of municipal governments and six state governments. In Uruguay, a strong co-operative movement has developed and local government experiences have created valuable lessons about how to democratise the state. Similar trends are found in other countries of both hemispheres. The challenge is complex, namely, how to implement a government platform combining a reformist approach (what is possible?) with the strategic and transforming objectives (what is desirable?). How do we make policies and initiatives of the government create the space and opportunity for people to become empowered rather than this apparatus acting as an end in itself?

How might states "govern for all" while at the same time be loyal and responsive to the needs, interests and aspirations of the broad masses of the people? How might a state co-ordinate national social and human development and, at the same time, fulfil the educative role in society (in the Gramscian sense) with the ultimate goal of empowering people, communities and the nation towards a self-managed mode of development? How do we strengthen the self-esteem, confidence and identity within a nation, while at the same time creating bridges and developing ties of true co-operation, complementarity and solidarity with other nations? How might we instil the same spirit and goals in multilateral institutions?

In my opinion, the world will be reconfigured from the bottom upwards, through the appreciation of the value of human diversity - I call it non-diversity namely each person, with its subjectivity and singularity, each community, each social group (including ethnic groups, gender groups, indigenous groups), each nation. This is the path toward a co-operative, fraternal form of globalisation. The economic and political empowerment of each and every individual, community and group is the actual content of a true democracy and of a true socialism. In this perspective, the nations may be re-conceived as unanimities (souls together, a shared project toward shared goals) in diversity (not at the cost of diversity). At the same time, they are collective non-diversities in search of unanimity to strengthen the development of their potential even further. The ultimate goal of the state is to be the orchestrator of human and socio-economic diversity and the catalyst for the establishment of renewed unities with diversity. The same can be envisaged for multilateral institutions and for an eventual global state, with respect to local and national societies and states.

Tom Nairn is a former TNI Fellow and teacher at the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Edinburgh University, Scotland.

A first issue in considering 'Whither the Nation State?' is to diagnose our starting point. To start with a metaphor, we are in the tail-race of modernization or industrialization. A tail-race belongs to the technology used in old water mills. The river water runs into a large pond called the mill-race. When there is enough water the sluice gates are opened and the water surges forward into a narrow channel toward the mill wheel, one might say, carrying the past with it. This is what historians will call primary industrialisation or urbanisation or the formation of the nation state. The wheel turns and modernisation occurs reaching into every corner of the world. Globalisation is the whole of the process which ends where we are now, which is when the water turning the wheel is thrown down into the tail race pond, the lower pond under the wheel, amid thunderous noise. When it comes into the tail-race, the water 'boils' in a chaotic, confused way and takes some time to sort out. I feel this is what we are doing here at this conference and others, around the world, are doing elsewhere.

Metaphors have their limit. Rivers of water do not remember, whereas the river of humanity does. The people of East Timor will remember the past through what has happened to them, through the episode of being punished for refusing to be loyal Indonesians and voting for independence. In Tibet, when they are finally free, they will remember how another army tried to convert them into communist-capitalists by force. They will see everything before the mill-race through this perspective and have myths about it. This in one sense is what nationalism is built upon. It is looking back and making the most of what one is left with at a certain stage of development. Livingstone, where I live, is a new town in Scotland devoted to electronics, or this new phase of globalisation. It has contingents from Japan, Korea and Taiwan, but for most of the people there, Scottish national culture is something they express and reconnect to their past, carrying forward their identity making it politically meaningful to them. About 80% of them did this in 1997 by voting 'Yes' to a parliament in Scotland.

The question is, 'What is changing in the tail-race?' How will this apparent confusion sort itself out? One thing above all is changing - the nature of the state. I agree with Boris Kagarlitsky that the state is an essential part. The term 'nation state' was always a misnomer. There are hardly any. All 'nation states' are 'state nations' really, including the new or revived one in Scotland. I see however, two related problems namely, the democratisation of the state, and the scale of the state. There is a transformation occurring in which scale plays an important part, and the issue now is downscaling, which has been shown over the past thirty years by changes at the level of the United Nations and changes in the formation of new states. By 2020, there will be 210-220 new state entities with an average size and power much smaller than we are historically accustomed, nothing like the leviathans, which dominated the mill-race and the process of primary industrialisation. The question is how are these new states going to survive and become more democratic?

Discussion

One area of discussion centred on the relationship between nation states and supranational institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, WTO, European Union, etc. Steve McGiffen is a European Parliamentary adviser to the Socialist Party of the Netherlands and member of the Secretariat of the United Left Group in the European Parliament. He felt that the idea that the present capitalist-dominated state is weak or weakened is absurd. However, for him the central issue is the supranational institutions, which are plainly undemocratic and indeed subverting democracy. Their power, for example through IMF restructuring or NATO bombing, is huge. They can destroy states, countries and peoples. What can governments in which progressive parties take part do, whether in developed or developing countries, so as to protect themselves from these supranational institutions? He fears it is a situation that cannot be reformed.

Marcos Arruda replied citing experience from Brazil. The Workers' Party has tried to build strong roots within society, because what legitimates any kind of reform or transformation is the level of social support. The problem is usually that, even when you have masses of people supporting change, the real power is not with the government but with those who control the economy, the finances and the military. The question is how much strength can be built to counteract this. It is very difficult to envisage a progressive government holding power at the Brazilian federal level but, currently, more than one hundred local and provincial governments are headed by the opposition party. They are making important changes and feeling the pressure from the feds about changing priorities. They have succeeded to some extent but it will take shifting alliances to make more happen. The Federal Government is much more complicated. The state still has enormous power. What a few men - and it is mostly men - are doing to smash the social state in Brazil, to move the concentration of wealth and power in and outside Brazil, is extraordinary. We can do the same if we win power, in the oppositedirection, when we talk about the possibility of changing international institutions.

Andre Gunder Frank spoke forcefully of the anti-democratic nature of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), which he called a multinational institution worse than any other, a loose canon under the control of no states. During the Kosovo crisis, states did the fighting but the decisions were taken by a handful of people who did not consult the UN Security Council (which is itself not democratic), national parliaments or civil society. By all standards of the Nuremburg, Vienna and Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, the Constitution of the USA and the Bundesrepublik, NATO started a criminal war. He asked what one could do about NATO's decision-making processes by-passing the entire democratic process.

If the state is collapsing or irrelevant to the needs of the mass of the population, what is the alternative? Dot Keet spoke from her experiences as an African. She is often perturbed to read how radicals in the most developed countries are dismissing the state and calling for sub-state formations, sometimes for very localised alternatives to the state, local economies and local identities. She thinks this might be an imposition on the globe of a stage in history that really reflects the experience of Europe or the most developed countries. It does not reflect the reality of Africa. You have to live, she said, in a collapsed state to understand the vital importance of the state. Living in Angola during war has taught her how imperative a state is to guaranteeing your life, rights, and physical security. Of course, states can be abusive, very anti-democratic and exploitative. But a non-state is not necessarily better than such a state. As brutal and authoritarian as some African states are, the alternative is anarchy, warlordism, acute poverty and desperation.

In countries that have already used the state for many centuries to create economies, welfare systems and physical security, this seems logical. The past offers the luxury from which one might suggest 'going back' to more localised solutions. Although this might be a positive development, it requires a certain level of development and stability and does not suggest that the state necessarily disappears. Even if Britain, for example, breaks up, the basic security and framework will still be the United Kingdom within which all these smaller nations exist.

Boris Kagarlitsky agreed. In certain parts of the former Soviet Union it is almost as bad as in certain parts of Africa, he said. Ordinary people there are not excited by post-modernist, trendy discussions of localism. They are in conflict with the state on a daily basis. However, they don't want less state. They want the state to respect their rights, to belong to and act accountably to them. Localism is a great thing but it needs a nation state as the next step.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk about multinational institutions regulating certain aspects of life internationally, and thus appropriating certain powers, which once belonged to the nation state. However, multinational institutions today are less democratic or totally undemocratic compared with nation states. So, transferring powers from the nation state to the multinational state does not mean more democracy. We have to fight for more democracy throughout, at local, national and multinational levels, he said.

Jessica Woodroffe asked how states will be rewarded if they do defend the people who need defending from international capital. Most people who do not need states to defend them are happy living in the international republic of Nike, Kit-Kat, etc. The people who need states and governments to protect them need that to be a virtuous relationship. They are mostly the disenfranchised, and so where is the link between their need and the reward to a state for defending them?

In reply to a question, Tom Nairn elaborated on the relationship between states and genocide. From the early 20th century onwards, through the disaster of National Socialism, the post-Cold War incidents in Cambodia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Tibet and East Timor, virtually all the real damage has been done by men (occasionally women) in uniform acting as agents of a state. The state has been responsible for such atrocities. This serves to show up the facile journalistic interpretations that 'nationalism' or a revival of atavistic passions is to blame. In fact, most atrocities have been carried out by states trying to establish or re-establish themselves, exploiting whatever forces they can find including 'ethnic solidarity', folk memory, etc.

Andre Gunder Frank said that the break-up of most states is due to economic crisis, long before there is military intervention or even before the IMF or USA enters with economic policies to make matters worse. A decade previously he was on a TNI panel and asked what to do about Eastern Europe, and he had replied, "Keep COMECON and keep the IMF out."

Some questioned the definition of the 'nation state' and how 'national identity' develops. Jochen Hippler repeated that there are hardly any 'nation states' in the strict sense of the term, but when it is used loosely then there are more. He believes that in Germany, for example, 20% of the population are migrants or others who would not be identified as 'German' in the Nazi ethnic or race ideology. His own ancestry is very confused and yet he is as 'German' as can be in terms of birth, passport, language, etc. If you take 'national identity' seriously then he would not have one. In the city where he lives in the Ruhr, one hundred years ago about one third of the population came from Poland to work in the coalmines. So, he still questioned the term 'nation state'.

He later added that the state is two things, a goal of policy and a tool of policy. It is not like the textbooks say namely that a nation exists and then it is decided democratically to have a state. A state exists for some historical reason and then it needs to broaden its legitimacy. In the period of the French Revolution, France had about thirty different languages. The French nation state was created through brainwashing, the education system, and a few massacres. These are things that states do to homogenise their societies. The usual way to produce a 'nation' is through a mixture of education and coercion. This is 'state' as a goal. He gave another example of a family in Pakistan whose 'national identity' has changed many times over three generations, not because of their free will but as a direct consequence of surviving in the changing political state context.

Boris Kagarlitsky added that a famous Russian linguist once said, "What is the difference between a dialect and a language? A language is a dialect which possesses an army". Dot Keet took up Tom Nairn's example of Scotland. About 500 years ago, Scotland had warring tribes, not a 'Scottish nation', she said. The Scottishnation has emerged out of long processes of education and conflict, echoing Jochen Hippler's point.

According to Phyllis Bennis, states create an ideology of nationalism not only to give people an identity but also to turn them into amobilising force. In one generation, we have seen the change from a nationalism that is, not solely but predominantly, a progressive justification for anti-colonial mobilization to a situation now, where there are many micro-nationalisms and newly-defined nationalisms among groupings that are not 'nations' at all but claim nationalism as a legitimating factor. She agreed with Tom Nairn that it is not the sole factor for horrifying conflicts, but it is an increasing phenomenon that smaller and smaller groups are identifying themselves as nationalists, calling for 'national rights' in ways that are not anti-colonial. She was interested in this shift from anti-colonialism to reactionary nationalism in relation to the relative weakening of states vis-a-vis TNCs, multilateral financial institutions, etc.

Bill Sutherland disagreed with various points. Nation states in Africa in the past forty years were nation states that decided for themselves to be states. He wondered how anyone could say that there could be anything worse than the apartheid state or the state in Congo underMobutu, or the Nazis. He used to think that the nation state was like children's diseases, something one had to go through, and then there would be an evolution into something else. However, he has returned to the Jeffersonian idea that a nation state that governs best, governs least. We must not discard the idea of the state entirely, because there has to be some kind of intermediate control, he said. But the idea that there can be nothing worse than anarchy is inconceivable to him.

Several participants pursued the need for greater democracy. One who works for the European Parliament noted the consistently declining turnout of voters in local, national and regional elections, and wondered what this meant for the state in the future. A student from Africa asked a very practical question about what would the panel suggest for an African state, what would they advise the people to do?

Hilary Wainwright pursued Tom Nairn's metaphor and asked whether the tail-race is producing merely froth or some new current. The social movements since 1968 have been more than protest or resistance movements, she said. If there are any common themes linking the students' movement, the landless peasants' movement in Brazil, or today's movement against genetically-modified foods, they are about deepening and extending democracy. They are a reaction to the vulnerability of the social state. The GM foods movement is about challenging governments that are in cahoots with TNCs, for example. So, in an uneven way, one can see the development of a new kind of democracy. This requires parliamentary democracy not to eliminate itself but to rethink itself, to recognise its limits and share power. In the new states in South Africa and Scotland there is an effort,albeit limited, to build into the democratic structures some kind of partnership with civil movements, not the 'arrogant NGOs' but the base of society. Perhaps the participatory budget movement of Brazil is even more meaningful and powerful. She asked how a stronger kind of democracy beinstitutionalised, not just evoking civil society but learning from such experiments to incorporate deeper sources of power than parliamentary democracy alone can mobilise.

Tom Nairn found hope in the recent referendum in Australia. The people there (who are not allowed not to vote) voted by a small majority to keep the British monarch as head of state. All commentaries have emphasised that people were voting not for HM Queen Elizabeth, but rather to stop the existing political class from having more power by being able to appoint the President. This is far from anti-democratic or anti-republican.

Two participants looked further ahead into the future. One asked, if Tom Nairn had seen the development of the nation state as a result ofindustrialisation, what then is the likely type of social organisation that is going to take its place, given the current transition from an industrial society to a knowledge-based society. Jules Marshall, a journalist, said he was amazed that we could get so far into a discussion of the nation state without discussing cyber-space. Electronic communications are the lifeblood of the supranational forces that seem to be taking over more of the roles of the nation state. We are, he stated, on the cusp of a dramatic fall in the ability of the state to raise taxes. California is estimated to lose 40% of its tax base within a few years. Rich companies and individuals will be moving their money into off-planet banks, not just safe havens on little islands. There is a scrabble for what is called 'Mindshare', which is the use of psychological addiction marketing techniques on Internet e-commerce sites. At the same time, the evolution of electronic communications software is helping people torevitalise democracy, going beyond this 19th century concept of representative democracy that we still seem saddled with and getting to the genuine voice of the people. It is an opportunity for creating new social conglomerates that cut across old nation states and can take up some of the slack that the nation state has given away - social security functions, education functions, etc.