Technology Can Kill the State
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The dire prediction of Julian Assange is the emergence of a totalitarian surveillance regime or regimes with global scope. Assange cautions us, “The transnational surveillance state and endless drone wars are almost upon us.” But Assange’s forecast is made against a backdrop of fierce (and loathed almost universally) state persecution of whistleblowers. Given this, the spread of techno-pessimism can be of little surprise and the belief in a technological dystopia can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, there is a more optimistic perspective. When we interpret them from a more scholarly angle and taking the larger view of history into account, the state’s excesses against troublesome individuals can be better understood as a show of weakness than a show of strength. “Modern” states are losing social cohesion and are in decline. The mere fact that we can talk in a scholarly way about this phenomenon shows that the weakening of state legitimacy and social cohesion is a credible theory.
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When we consider this, we are forced to consider state weaknesses that are unprecedented in history. It is not particularly important that the state is less able to function, but it is important that the state is going to be less required to function. The state machinery is on a road to superfluity in the long term. What is being witnessed already is not a threat to state power and efficacy, but to state legitimacy. Without legitimacy, which means popular confidence in the authority of the state, states will falter and will find the loyalty to their regimes getting paler. Duty to “queen and country” would already appear to be a laughable idea to most Britons, because transnational affiliations and awareness are stronger in the present day. The need for a strong nation-state affiliation is perishing, and with it any ability to take state authority very seriously. Oddly, this deterioration of nation-state loyalty seems to be happening even while popular devotion to ethnic and religious identities and figures continues as strong as ever (likely because these cultures are not contingent on territory, while the “deterritorialization”addressed by globalization scholars encompasses the trend of the increased circulation of people and information).
One can make the argument that triumphs against surveillance turn the tide in the battle of the individual and state. Cypherpunks contends that cryptographic tools on the web can “force” out the state, and this unprecedented revolt actually begins to discredit the state monopoly on force. The state is also incapable of enforcing its will, if its demands and goals can fall prey to popular rejection and ridicule because of the ease of web communication and the easy movement of human beings. Perhaps, most importantly, self-sustaining technologies (e.g. future generations of 3D printers and similar devices) and increasingly skilled individuals will lead to the possibility that forces normally conserved by states could be “deterritorialized”, if they become far too wieldy in the hands of individuals to sustain any geopolitical relevance. Consider the capacity for lone, skilled insiders such as Edward Snowden to present (I would argue) a far greater challenge to US global dominance and legitimacy than anything the US is currently facing from opposing states. Consider the challenge that a deterritorialized post-state organization such as Wikileaks can pose to multiple “great powers” whose surfaces were hitherto impossible to scratch even by the most skilled technicians.
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To reckon with the state backlash against the internet and against the weakening of borders can easily give activists the impression of an emerging fascistic dystopia. However, do not be deterred. Whether your perspective is that of the marginalized migrant or the persecuted leaker, a dystopian view may be misinformed by despondency of having experiences magnified by the very fact they are “on the ground”. Most people, out of respect for individual sufferings and stories, would contend that this close and gritty perspective leads to accuracy, but it does not lead to a comprehensive analysis of the kind forwarded by Wallerstein. Although created in an “ivory tower” in some sense, the long-term view of the world system and its historical trends expressed in Wallerstein’s theories would conclude that a democratic, stateless and egalitarian alternative can indeed be achieved when the great chaos and suffering typical to historical transitions is overcome. This is not an argument for a stateless world, but rather an argument that a stateless world is a historical inevitability, and adapting to its inevitability and acknowledging it will make the transition less dangerous (although nothing can make history truly safe) for us all. What we now perceive “on the ground” as the emergence of a totalitarian regime is really the convulsions of the “modern” states system as it finally dies and is succeeded by a reintegrated humane civilization. Whatever the case might be at our current juncture, the “deterritorialized” migrant or leaker is on the correct side of history. Those of humanity who are suspended between states, who exist primarily online, and who have no “homeland”, are the citizens of the Wallersteinian future civilization.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/09/technology-can-kill-the-state/