Greater Council

[jducoeur]

I'm currently auditing a fun class on futurism, taught by jrising -- I'm not able to attend as often as I'd like, but I'm trying to keep up with at least some of the reading. And this week's assignment set me thinking.

The assignment is to read the first few chapters of this declassified report from the CIA about the likely paths from here (well, from 2004) to 2020. The report is long, but so far very intriguing. One of the points it makes is that governance is becoming more challenging, in large part due to the shift from nation-based identity to more transnational forms of identity. They focus on religion in particular, but I suspect the real trends will prove to be broader than that -- that the growth of international communication is going to lead to new, hard-to-predict cross-border movements that matter more to people than national identity does.

The question is, how do you manage that? I mean, the UN (the closest thing we have to a world forum) is based around a fundamental assumption that national borders are what *matter*, far more than anything else -- that all other considerations are very minor in comparison. Ditto for essentially all of the national governments: everyone has bought into the notion that national identity is the most important bit. The meme of the nation-state is so pervasive that we rarely question it, but it's not clear that that's realistic: the concept that nationalism is the be-all and end-all is a relatively modern one, and there have been many other forms of social organization in world history. Geographic-based organization is *straightforward*, and comparatively easy to enforce, which has always been a strength. But it's not clear to me that it's really any less artificial than any other form of organization: it's just the natural outgrowth of government by force.

What would a world look like where national identity is no longer the principal one? Governance is closely interrelated with identity: people form their identities based partly on their position in society, and society shapes itself around the aggregates of those identities. The report is only concerned with 2020, so it doesn't go too far into this question, but the class goes out to 2100 -- enough time for possible significant change, if "identity" continues to get more complicated.

The reason for the title of this post is that, of course, Carolingia wrestled with this question very early on, and came up with a fairly unusual solution. Identity politics is basically at the heart of Carolingia's political compact: each "identity group", both geographic and non, has a voting seat on Council, and each citizen's influence is related to how much they play in those various groups. It's a fairly rough system, that doesn't try to be "fair" in a fine-grained way -- we've never really needed anything fancier. But it's an example of the lateral thinking that's possible when you consider governance to be related to identity, and identity more complex than simply geographic.

So what might governance look like in 2100? If communications trends were to continue (by no means a sure thing), and people get more and more invested in trans-national entities, what does that do to government, both on the small scale and the large? (Yes, this is all wild speculation, and yes, the odds that nation-states will remain in charge are pretty good. But I don't consider it anything like a certainty, and I'm pondering the alternatives...)

Comments

[sephiaowl.livejournal.com]

What happens when national id's don't matter? According to Samuel Huntington, the Clash of Civilizations. We get new identities as members of religious groups or civilizations. West v. East and all that. Of course, by now, most people think that theory is just a bit too extreme but who knows?

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age has one answer.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Or, in fact, most of cyberpunk; the idea that corporate fiefdoms dominate cultural identity is central to 80s cyberpunk.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I see you, too, have been to Villa Straylight.

[jducoeur]

Yaas. I wasn't going to bring that up, mostly because I'm not yet convinced that *identification* by corporate identity is going to become that strong. But I could believe it -- it's an extreme but plausible extrapolation of modern trends. (Indeed, there are strong elements of that in the Tabula Rasa LARPs, especially TR II, where the planet and corporation of Pitia are more or less indistinguishable...)

[jducoeur]

Intriguing. Haven't read it yet, but it's sitting on my list for fairly soon...

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I cannot recommend it highly enough - despite suffering from every major flaw that Stephenson has. (Feels under-edited, starts better than it begins, the end is confusing and doesn't resolve as much as it should.)

But it bursts with ideas, and one of the main ones is the notion of "choosing nations" by interest or personality type.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

My very immediate notion, having just read this, is that the concept of "estates" figures into this. The UN, as you say (as well as say, Congress) is based solely on geography. But let's look at the British House of Lords: that is based (or originally was based) on who you served, which is a more complex question. And it also included the "Lords Spiritual", so that you might be "represented" (if that concept can even be invoked here) by a Lord Temporal (or, not unlikely, several of them) and a cleric or two. On Great Council, you are, as you say, represented by as many Councillors as the "constituencies" you play in, and I really don't think that's all that unusual among organizations (especially those composed of multiple "special interest groups) although it's difficult to come up with examples of that model in national government...although I have the vague notion that Fascism (in the original unloaded meaning of the word) may have worked that way.

Anyway, so much my rambling thoughts at this point. Gotta consider this a bit more.

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

Carolingia wrestled with this question very early on, and came up with a fairly unusual solution

Historical note: that system, representation by association not by individual, was taken from the Ordinances of Justice, the constitution of republican Florence in the 13th and 14th centuries. Sometimes looking backward can be a great way to find lateral thinking :-)

(ETA: See description here)

To come slightly closer to addressing your point, I remember reading a prediction ca. 1970 that as the EEC became stronger, European national governments would become less relevant, and regional identities would assert themselves more strongly. I think this trend has manifested over the last 35 years or so; not just political separatist movements, there were plenty of them around and the time, but notice that the Scottish Parliament has gained more authority in the time since (not necessarily in the direction of independence), that French provinces with distinct ethnic identities (Brittany, Languedoc, Alsace) have taken to promoting their ethnic distinction for tourism purposes to a degree that would never have been tolerated by Paris in the '60s.

So while you seem to be looking for larger, transnational identities to emerge, I want to point out that the decline of nationalism also allows room for more local, regional identification as well.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Geographic-based organization is *straightforward*, and comparatively easy to enforce, which has always been a strength. But it's not clear to me that it's really any less artificial than any other form of organization: it's just the natural outgrowth of government by force.

It seems to me that you're a bit over-focused on the whole personal identity issue, and missing a major part of why we have governance - managing access to natural resources.

I don't care how non-local your personal interests are, the natural resources are still tied to geography. That that matters a very great deal. We in the US have such unparalleled access to resources due to our wealth and (much as folks would deny it) fairly efficient distribution systems, so we tend to forget how large a part these things play in our economy, and thus our governance.

It is all well and good to say that folks are interested in non-local things - that interest will always be second to prices at the grocery store.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

the natural resources are still tied to geography.

True, and important.

But not *as* all-important as it used to be. Larger and larger segments of the economy are essentially virtual, and not strongly tied to a particular geography. I doubt that geography will ever become irrelevant, but its importance is diminishing.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Larger and larger segments of the economy are essentially virtual, and not strongly tied to a particular geography.

I think larger segments of the economy are represented by virtual means. But the amount of the market that is actually virtual - not at all linked to real physical stuff - is smaller than people think.

The bond market, for example - entirely virutal, right? The government says it'll pay me more money later if I give them some money now - expect that supposedly virtual system is dramatically impacted by the activity in the real estate market.

And, how many of the six billion people in the world actually have regular access to this virtual world?

[jducoeur]

Just so. The question isn't geography going away, but rather it becoming simply one consideration among many...

[jducoeur]

True enough -- but it's not clear how that geography needs to be organized. In particular, the modern nation-state is *not* a particularly natural way to do so: it often draws together groups with intensely competing interests vis a vis those natural resources. (Indeed, one of the most common tensions that tear countries apart is misallocation of those resources.)

So while I think you're correct that geography will continue to be a factor, and resources are one of the reasons why, I don't see an obvious reason to believe it'll be at the kind of granularity we see today. It might be -- but it's easy to see it fracturing to a much smaller size. Certainly it's very easy to look at many countries out there today where a large fraction of the populace would *prefer* to subdivide the country into smaller pieces, precisely because of resources...

[mindways]

There's a novel by Charles Stross called Iron Sunrise - sci-fi, very imaginitive future - in which one character is from Earth, where one evidently doesn't have a "nationality" per se, but rather a variety of associations with various groups. It's an odd enough arrangement so as to be somewhat opaque to the more-traditional offworlders he's dealing with.

(I'll casually recommend Iron Sunrise. I'll more vigorously recommend the book to which it is a sequel, Singularity Sky.)

[jducoeur]

Yet another Stross recommendation. I dearly wish the man had some audiobooks out, since that's how I'm doing much of my "reading" at the moment. I clearly need to read some of his stuff...

[jrising.livejournal.com]

While strong non-regional associations will be a problem for governments, the harder problem for governance and identity is that people will have *multiple* powerful associations (which you allude to)-- in geographic, economic, and social spheres. I suspect that governance will be recasted in terms of services, instead of authority. In return for paying taxes, you get regional protection and infrastructure. In return for dues (or other entrance requirements) to other large associations, you might get healthcare, access to basic necessities (local, environmentally-friendly, delivered to your door, standardized or luxury-- depends on the ideals of the group you're part of), and advocacy in legal spheres (which will also be de-regionalized).

Identity is more interesting, but has an awful lot of ramifications. People already have multiple identities through the internet, but we haven't yet found ways to close the feedback circuit on society. There are very few shared values to, say, LJ users, and the only kinds of groups that are designed to be thought of as coherent groups on the internet (from inside or out) are action networks. Currently, I think people are moving toward having two big-identities (identities within full-feedback status systems): their job identity, and a totally unique net identity, with only loose associations (this is a weak identity). The closest I've seen to a full-feedback identity systems that fosters strong associations is couchsurfing, where the feedback status elements are made very explicit (but it appears to be quite effective).

[siderea]

While strong non-regional associations will be a problem for governments, the harder problem for governance and identity is that people will have *multiple* powerful associations (which you allude to)-- in geographic, economic, and social spheres. I suspect that governance will be recasted in terms of services, instead of authority.

Well, yes, (Says my SCA persona) that's how we solved that problem back in the 12th/13th century.

Currently, I think people are moving toward having two big-identities (identities within full-feedback status systems): their job identity, and a totally unique net identity, with only loose associations (this is a weak identity).

Hmmmmmmm. I dunno. I mean, it's so very hard to get my head above the crowd of my local peeps to see what the normals are doing. Because make no mistake, people like you, me, and jducoeur aren't doing identity the way normal people are doing identity. I know I can't figure out what the normal's trajectory is, here. Are we techno-freaks just early adopters? In this case, my hunch says no, because we were doing identity different before there was an internet to do it with, and our use of the internet seems to recapitulate cultural norms we already had. I don't observe my normal classmates doing the same thing on the internet. To the contrary, multiple identities are more alien to them than to us. Of course, the internet may expose them to the same forces which inclined us to do as we did, culturally (spam changes trust!)

The closest I've seen to a full-feedback identity systems that fosters strong associations is couchsurfing, where the feedback status elements are made very explicit (but it appears to be quite effective).

Ooo! Where can I learn more about this? And how do you see it comparing to other identity/community systems like the SCA, Fandom, the BDSM scene, biker gangs, Rainbow, etc?

[jducoeur]

My *impression* is that many of the information/identity trends we've seen among geekdom are getting to be more mainstream (and perhaps even more pronounced) among the younger generation. But I can't say I'm sure about that -- filtering truth out of the great Internet noise machine is tricky...