Gunpowder, Cryptography, and Sovereign Individuals
From the gunpowder revolution to the industrial revolution, to the information society: the birth and decline of the nation-state and the dawn of a new socio-economic system.
Who are we, where are we, but most importantly: where are we going?
Today, we will embark on a brief journey through history to better understand some of the dynamics we are subjected to today, such as surveillance and mass manipulation by governments and corporations.
Thanks to the contributions of great thinkers like Murray Rothbard, James Dale Davidson, Lord William Rees-Mogg, Ted Kaczynski, and Timothy May, we will uncover the logics that led to the emergence of the nation-state and will eventually lead to its decline.
We will start with the gunpowder revolution of the 14th century and proceed to today, passing through the industrial revolution. Finally, we will take a brief look at the future that awaits us in the digital age.
I recommend directly reading the thoughts of these authors, but I hope this article can offer an accessible interpretation for everyone and provide food for thought about current society and the future that awaits us.
From the agrarian society to the gunpowder revolution
Throughout our long history, humanity has traveled and surpassed various stages that have marked immeasurable social transformations.
James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg, who wrote in 1997 the book called “The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age”, define these imposing social transformations, which often require several centuries, as “megapolitics”. According to the authors, megapolitical transformations are provoked by events that somehow destabilize the balances and power relations, such as major technological discoveries.
One of the most recent megapolitical transformations was the one that marked the transition from the feudal system to the current system of nation-states. The main factor that over five centuries determined the end of the feudal system was the so-called gunpowder revolution.
The spread of firearms had a profound impact on society: pistols, rifles, and cannons rendered useless and obsolete weapons and armor that for thousands of years had defined power relations on a global scale. The new tools of offense and defense were, however, much more expensive compared to swords, bows, and crossbows.
The feudal system, composed of many small feudal sovereigns competing with each other, was no longer efficient in extracting the necessary resources from the people to afford and sustain militias armed with rifles and cannons.
Until 1300, the European economy was based on international trade of goods, regulated by voluntary negotiation rules and supported by a free banking system, very present especially in the Italian peninsula. The new technological incentives, however, led to a gradual but decisive transformation of the political system and human society. The sovereigns needed a better way to extract resources and support increasingly high costs for aggression and defense.
As Murray Rothbard described in “Conceived in Liberty”, the 14th century marked the birth of so-called Mercantilism, that is, a political-economic system centered on the control of the economy and trade by the sovereign to accumulate wealth, often in the form of gold and silver.
The contractual agreements between merchants were thus replaced by laws and bureaucratic burdens that created artificial monopolistic and inefficient economies, founded on political power and no longer on the market method.
The new resources necessary to support the military apparatus were extracted thanks to Guilds of merchants and artisans who helped the sovereign collect taxes and enforce his laws, receiving in return political privileges and artificial monopolies to exclude competition.
An example of the new economic-political mercantilist arrangement comes from England. In the 14th century, Edward III established the High Court of Admiralty, which over time absorbed and replaced the jurisdiction of the common law courts, which until then defined disputes through customary commercial laws. This gradually allowed the English government to establish a de facto monopoly on the sea and maritime commercial activities.
Those who preferred the free market to the new parasitic European arrangement soon emigrated to America, leaving behind a continent already projected towards a society that Tocqueville would describe some centuries later as devoid of any interest in public life, with a bored nobility worried about maintaining its power over a humiliated and demoralized people.
The transition to the industrial society
Having planted the seed of statism, technology was again one of the primary factors for the megapolitical transition to the industrial society, which by the end of the 18th century saw the definitive birth and establishment of the nation-state.
The transformation of the industrial apparatus, thanks to steam-powered and electric machines, was a huge incentive for urbanization. Millions of people moved from the countryside to urban centers to improve their status and take advantage of new productive opportunities.
This led to the emergence of new centers of power, both economic and political, especially due to the new needs for public representation by workers and the new middle class. The market method was now an old story.
At the same time, the new complexities and political demands were the premise for the birth of a new class of bureaucrats and the subsequent expansion of the government's role in controlling the economy and industry.
Between the 18th and 19th centuries, the state became in all effects a tool of welfare-warfare above every social class. The first tools of universal welfare, such as the Social Security Number in the USA, were a pretext to extend the state's interference in people's lives, and no longer just in the economy. We can say that the first crude attempts at surveillance and mass control began precisely with universal welfare.
It was also during this period, in response to some technological innovations such as the first portable cameras, that the need to think about a "right to privacy" was born.
But even this new balance of power was about to be unbalanced and reshuffled by technology — just as it was for the feudal system.
From the industrial society to the information society
The development of the first information technologies, computers, and more recently the Internet has radically changed every aspect of our lives. These technologies have made it possible in a very short time to communicate in real-time around the world and establish new digital trade routes initially devoid of any regulation, except contractual and customary ones. As it was for the maritime trade routes until the 14th century.
Today's society is no longer centered on the production and exchange of material goods and products, but on information and services. Obviously, the industry — as well as agriculture — remains a fixed point in our world.
Digital technology, according to Davidson and Rees-Mogg, has marked the beginning of a new megapolitical transformation that will inevitably lead to the overcoming of the industrial society and its institutions, such as the nation-state.
The end of the nation-state and the birth of the Sovereign Individual
If gunpowder and industrial machines led to a centralization of power in the hands of a few subjects, digital technology instead encourages a distribution and decentralization of power in the hands of individuals. According to Davidson and Rees-Mogg, the information society will lead to the birth of Sovereign Individuals.
The Sovereign Individual is someone who does not depend on any nation-state for the definition of their identity, for their economic sustenance, and for their well-being.
It is an autonomous person, not constrained by traditional criteria of "citizenship" or national borders; it is a person capable of trading and doing business anywhere and with anyone thanks to digital technology. The Sovereign Individual is also a person able to accumulate significant wealth and create new wealth, being able to choose between different jurisdictions and able to operate in the digital market.
In short, according to the authors of The Sovereign Individual, information technology will have profound implications in the economy, society, and the distribution of power: we will move from the centralized model characteristic of industrial societies to a decentralized and individualistic social model.
The techno-pessimism of Prof. Kaczynski
If Davidson and Rees-Mogg seem optimistic about the future, Prof. Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, did not feel the same way. In 1995 he wrote an essay titled: “Industrial Society and Its Future” in which he harshly criticized industrial society and the role of technology in people's lives.
According to him, the modern technological-industrial system is inherently harmful to human freedom and cannot in any way be changed or exploited for the benefit of people. Industrial and digital technology for Kaczynski is a destructive tool with no possibility of redemption.
The distinguished professor explains that life in modern society is nothing more than a series of fictions to which we all submit more or less voluntarily to give a purpose to our lives: sports activities, hobbies, political activism, and even many modern jobs. These, according to him, are nothing more than surrogate activities that we surround ourselves with to convince ourselves that our lives have meaning.
And while we are so busy searching for meaning in our lives, we do not realize that we are subjected to an oppressive system resulting from the centralization of technology in the hands of a few.
Technology for Kaczynski is a tool that gives nation-states and corporations the power to continuously surveil and control individuals. From these pervasive surveillance capabilities also derive powers of control and manipulation of people, even through psychological, medical, genetic, and economic techniques.
For Kaczynzki, there will be no natural transformation of our society. The only way out of this oppressive system is the complete renunciation of industrial and digital technology, which passes through the physical destruction of technological apparatuses and ends with an escape into the woods and a conscious return to a pre-industrial age.
In the middle, the Cypherpunk vanguard
Halfway between the extreme pessimism of Kaczynski and the optimism of Davidson and Rees-Mogg are the theories that found space in the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto written by Timothy May in 1988 and in the Cypherpunk Manifesto written by Eric Hughes in 1992.
Like Kaczynski, the crypto-anarchists also recognized the dangers of the centralization of technological power in the hands of states and corporations, but at the same time, they also recognized its liberating power, urging people to exploit it to their advantage.
Timothy May wrote: “Crypto anarchy will alter completely the nature of government regulation, the ability to tax and control economic interactions, the ability to keep information secret, and will even alter the nature of trust and reputation”.
According to him, people will find new spaces of freedom thanks to digital technology and the spread of crypto-anarchist virtual communities around the world.
We could say that the Cypherpunks were a small vanguard of people who anticipated Davidson and Rees-Mogg's analysis by almost 10 years, without prophesying any megapolitical transformation. Their idea, if you will, was rather a save-yourself-who-can.
So, where are we going?
If we trust what was written in The Sovereign Individual, the renewed independence of people and digital technology will gradually lead nation-states, inadequate to manage the new dynamics, to lose power and change shape.
The large nation-states will crumble under their own weight, going on to form new micro-states and city-states with governance systems very different from those we know today.
The Internet has shown us that we do not need intermediaries and state rules to do business with the rest of the world, just as European merchants did until the 14th century. Bitcoin has shown us that we do not need a central bank or a state currency to exchange value among ourselves. And finally, cryptography has taught us that we can protect our communications from prying eyes and those who would like to censor us.
If instead we wanted to agree with Ted Kaczinsky, we should think that our society can only get worse: more and more surveillance and control, social scoring, CBDC, censorship…
In truth, I believe that the train of the megapolitical transition has already left, but not everyone will get on board and it will not be a journey without turbulence. Nation-states are well aware of the disruptive power of these technologies, and will do everything — as is already happening — to control them. They will not succeed, but they will not give up easily and it will probably be much worse before it gets much better.
Some minorities of individuals will choose the path proposed by Kaczinsky: total rejection of technology and return to a simpler life, away from urban centers. Others will instead choose that of the Cypherpunks: crypto-anarchist virtual communities and extensive use of technology to their advantage.
Between these opposite poles, someone will position themselves halfway. For example, even today it is not rare to find bitcoiners who on the one hand appreciate the use of extremely innovative technologies, but who on the other hand still prefer to move away from large urban centers for a more rural lifestyle.
And then there are the masses, at the mercy of events and unwitting victims. But we are not, right?