"The politicians may promise, but now the markets decide."
What a great line. It's from "The Information Revolution and the Death of the Nation State", by Ian Angell, recommended by reader knightofpentacles (must spell correctly, or else "pentacles" end up as another word).
Written in 1995 (you can tell because the writer is still using the term "information superhighways", it may be an oldie, but some of the issues raised are very real.
Excerpt:
Everywhere the nation-state is in retreat. All the while citizens are losing their faith in the nation-state, seeing it as a peculiarly twentieth century phenomenon. For the state is failing to deliver its side of the Faustian pact, where the individual submits to the legitimate violence of the state in return for protection and security. Globalization has shown the James Bond myth, that the state is good and global corporations (Spectre) are bad, to be blatant propaganda on behalf of the nation-state. James Bond, the patron saint of the nation-state, is now just another dirty old man.
