This is a book written in 1997 about the future – and it has been suprisingly accurate. Now, the author may have been lucky with his predictions but it was also useful to have a another vantage point of the future. And the author, James Dale Davidson, brings up many good points that we should take into account in our decision making.
Talks about cycles in human civilisation and the current cycle is started by the invention of the internet. The internet allows the connection and remote production of invdividuals. No longer are they bound by where they are. Therefore, this has a profound effect on governments – because now people have choice.
Systems change slowly over time and only until there is a sharp breaking point (sudden inflexion) do we know that it was heading to disaster. In the case of Rome, how can we pinpoint where it ended. We can see the times when the emperors fell but actually the line of emperors beforehand were paying lip service to the status quo. Only going through the motions – electing civil officials for 1 year, christianity as the state religion, etc.
The book was written in 1997 and 20 years later many of its predictions have come true; cybercurrency (bitcoin), massive printing by governments (2020), the rise of developing economies and the reduction of USA, the effect of the cybereconomy vs china.
Do we look at the current world power – USA and note that there are some details which show the self-serving nature of those in charge and the behind the scene groups driving their own agenda? It certainly looks like things are moving in ONE direction and the trump administration may be seen as either a sign to right the ship or the continual decline.
The book points out that you can never make out what leads to the fall of rome at the time (confirmaiton bias), and it was only after the effect do you attribute reasons for the downfall. The based on the result, if a captain was controlling and pushed the team and won the game – he would be seen as a brilliant leader. However, if the captain lost the game he could be seen as a little-napolean giving those underneath him little room to move.
thinking about the control of government in economic rather than political terms. Three basic alternatives with different set of incentives: propietors, employees and customers. Proprietor – a hereditary leader who for all internets and purposes owns the country. E.g Brunei. Proprieters set the price (tax) and the people have no choice due to monopolization of violence.
Government controlled by its employees would seldom have incentives to either reduce goverment costs or the price charged to their customers. However, where conditions impose strong price resistance, in the form of opposition to higher taxes, the goverments controlled by employees would be more likely to let their revenues fall below their outlays then cut back outlays (spending). the incentive is for inclined toward chronic deficits.
Government controlled by its customers would have incentives to reduce their operating costs as far as possible while delivering the minimum. This is because of competition (from other governments). Examples include medieval merchant republics (like venice) who needed protection provided by the government. They did not seek to profit from their control of government’s monopoly of violence. A goverment controlled by its customers sets tax rates not to opimize the amount the government can collect but rather to optimise the amount that they customers can retain.
Get it on amazon here today.
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5 Percent a day 