I've enjoyed the essay with it's analysis of medieval kingdoms' power structure and other charming historical asides. If only it continued in the same vein, diving into the history of the 20th century and tracing how McCarthyism and authoritarianism gave way to current anemic states! Alas, instead of a proper argument, we'll have to be content with this brief sketch in the comments...
The curious thing about power is just how much it dislikes being studied. From medieval kings who were anointed by God to Manifest Destiny explaining the inevitability of Republicanism and to liberalism with the end of history - the legitimizing stories are comforting, but have nothing in common with the ways power is gathered and wielded. Unfortunately, America's winning streak in the 20th century convinced elites to believe their own lie: that the state is redundant and should get out of the economy and civil society. As direct state involvement became gauche, every issue was re-framed as a sub-state one. This prompted both the atrophy of state capacity and attempts to portray adversaries as "nationalist" - so married to the state that they are ready to die for it.
To see how this confused notion of nationalism obscures more than clarifies, we only have to re-read your highly misleading analysis of Russia's situation
> Despite a dictatorial regime...Russia can only manage a partial mobilization at best in its present war. They were forced to significantly dial back their conscription efforts in the face of mass discontent.
The key to understanding Russian internal politics is that the current regime is non-ideological and thus considers any mass ideology a threat. Notably, it includes both pro-Russian ethnicity nationalism and pro-Russian country (in geopolitical sense) nationalism, which stand in opposition to "patriotism" (being pro-government). Basically, the government doesn't want to share the power and with that in mind consciously declined numerous opportunities: branding invasion a war instead of SMO, employing fiery nationalistic rhetoric in place of vague threats and "red lines," minimizing mobilization, and more. I hope it's now clear why Russia shouldn't be used as a case study for limits of nationalism. Ukraine would be a much better example here as for it war is existential and consequently elites don't have much choice. But that refutes your thesis - after all nationalistic Ukraine clearly outperformed in the war!
Returning to the main point, state atrophy and vilification of nationalism are luxury goods. When times are good, elites sabotage possible checks on themselves from above (the state) and below (grassroot nationalism). However, a credible external threat can make them reverse course. Considering current geopolitical currents, I won't be surprised if many countries will rediscover the necessity of both state involvement and nationalism.
>state atrophy and vilification of nationalism are luxury goods. When times are good, elites sabotage possible checks on themselves from above (the state) and below (grassroot nationalism)
I agree with the idea that elites (especially in the united states in the 20th century) indulged in luxury beliefs and many even started to believe the stories they told, and actually have a draft on this specific topic but it would need a lot of editing to publish
>a credible external threat can make them reverse course. Considering current geopolitical currents, I won't be surprised if many countries will rediscover the necessity of both state involvement and nationalism
however I think this confuses the issue, and we have to distinguish the interests of the state from the behavior of the people. you're absolutely right that, since the gwot, states have been trying to get back to nationalism as practiced in the 20th century in an attempt to rebuild state capacity. but whether the _people_ will go along with this is a very different story
one of the points I was trying to make is I think the very different economic growth potential and communications technologies will result in only a minority throwing their lot in with such a project, another minority just as vehemently opposed no matter what the situation is, and the majority checking out (leaving the country, or leaving the labor force, slacking off, playing zero-sum games, etc). if this happens, and if ai doesn't replace a ton of human labor, you just can't have the kind of mass mobilization that enabled the napoleonic and world wars, at all
the rand paper I quote at the start has a lot to say about this, I don't know enough to comment on their analysis of china, but I think their view of the united states is quite strong
>Ukraine would be a much better example here as for it war is existential and consequently elites don't have much choice. But that refutes your thesis - after all nationalistic Ukraine clearly outperformed in the war!
ukraine outperformed at the start because russia expected them to roll over and they didn't. they were trying to land helis in kyev on day one with zero air superiority and getting shot out of the sky, they rolled tanks in and then had to roll them right back out. the fighters who remained are very brave, to be sure, but russian weakness (in both warfighting and industrial capacity) and western military aid are the major reasons why it has ground to a standstill
russia had mercenaries doing the hardest fighting and they revolted and almost sacked the capital of their employer, and millions of ukrainians fled the homeland within days of the initial invasion and stayed fled even when it was repulsed because they'd rather have a decent life elsewhere than a hard life doing their duty to the state. both of these would have been unthinkable in the world wars but were quite expected and natural during the medieval and early modern periods
Excellent article. I just finished writing an entire book on the subject of how nation-states are being disrupted by the Internet and globalization, and we've reached remarkably similar conclusions.
Your analysis of the neomedieval transition mirrors my own research. The weakening of state authority, fragmenting societies, and informalization of warfare you describe parallel what I call the 'disrupted socles' of the modern nation-state.
Where your analysis particularly resonates with my work is in the understanding that power centralizes when it can and decentralizes when it must. This reflects what I call the '5th principle of history' - that reversals in the balance between attack and defense technologies fundamentally disrupt existing power structures. The Internet, cryptography, and digital technologies have dramatically shifted this balance, just as gunpowder once undermined feudal castles.
Your observation that people increasingly view their relationship with the state as a cost/benefit calculation rather than a sacred duty is exactly what I've documented in my research - from taxation patterns to the rise of digital nomads who can choose their jurisdiction from among dozens of options : https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/digital-nomadism-disrupting-nation-states
I particularly appreciate your insight on transnational culture formation. We're seeing the rise of what I call 'multicountry' individuals versus 'monocountry' citizens - those who can leverage internet-enabled mobility to transcend national boundaries versus those bound to a single jurisdiction https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/why-monocountrism-is-holding-you-back . This mobility is no longer limited to elites but extends to anyone who can work remotely.
"Indeed, it is entirely plausible that the nationalist wave of the 19th century was largely downstream of industrialization, with major changes to lifestyles and unprecedented improvements in living standards allowing the United States, Europe, and Japan to fund massive public works, immense bureaucracies, and titanic wars on the basis of this gratitude and enthusiasm."
Yes. And not only on the basis of gratitude and enthusiasm, but also of the ability to finance the State and glorify it.
Centralizing technologies reached their peak around 1950, with Western countries full of factories that created the majority of value, easy to paralyze during strikes to demand compensation, and impossible to move, and economic elites that were largely immobile, prisoners of the enclosure of national borders, making them easy to “milk” by the States, which made it possible to finance a powerful State controlling information and the economy on a national scale.
"But since the 1970s, all of these trends have reversed. The situation now is that the masses feel betrayed: they did their duty, fulfilled their side of the obligation, only to see themselves neglected and taken advantage of by states that no longer provide broad-based prosperity."
Yes. And it is also because the States no longer have the means to finance the Welfare State as they were able to do when technologies began to favor decentralization.
"Merely, "tech" is the first successful model of a decentralized, transnational culture in the present era that is capable of truly superseding national loyalties and fostering collective feeling among members who acculturate to it by choice. This model is what will wax, and many more instances of it, with radically different values and practices, will emerge in the coming decades."
There is another: as I will discuss in an article to be published very soon, I think digital nomads are a proto-network nation that will soon have a Network-State (or States).
Amazing essay. However, I completely disagree with its core idea. All of the phenomena you described are true; none of them are likely to reduce the power of the state. In fact, states that are good enough at maintaining solid public finances, and harnessing the genius of outlier individuals and communities will likely improve their position and win in this newly fragmented world.
The Roman Empire fell because it stopped growing (there is a growth ceiling without industrialization) and was on an unsustainable financial trajectory. In a country like the US, the state is much more powerful and functional. It has and will continue to force the various autonomous entities that emerge within it (be it states, corporations, NGOs or network states) to enhance its power.
Those entities will most likely oblige, as they have much to gain from the protection of a powerful government. Think Zuckerberg asking Trump to defend Meta in Europe or network states sharing their technology with the US government in exchange for the protection of their data centers on US soil.
I see no reason why the only choice is between the centralization and strength of the Roman Empire and the fragmentation and weakness of the Holy Roman Empire. What we could get is a new Industrial Revolution, as the UK had gotten when the power of the state was severely limited in the 17th century. The evolving tech could allow for a much more limited yet infinitely more powerful government to emerge throughout the 21st century despite (or even because of) all of the trends you write about.
A very good essay. Coincidentally, I found this essay just as I've about finished my own essay on neomedievalism - we've raised many of the same points.
That RAND corporation report was mind-blowing wasn't it?
What a great essay. I love Jeff Jarvis' Gutenberg Parenthesis & this really makes the case even better that in more ways than one, the post modern (or neo-medieval) world more closely resembles the medieval than the modern that directly preceded it and is in many ways a reversion to the mean.
I guess my main question is whether we should really expect middleweight or “makeweight” powers to gain in importance at the expense of the state—whether the collapse of state power and legitimacy is really what’s happening. An alternate reading of what’s happening is that there has been a general decline in the power and legitimacy of almost all social and political institutions.
At the same time that states seem to be facing headwinds, churches (or other forms of organized community worship), community associations (local bowling clubs, Rotary Clubs, etc.), etc. have also declined—no? I took this to be the key point made by Robert Putnam in his work. People are apparently lonelier now than they were in the past, suggesting that friendship is in decline. Family bonds are not as strong: coupling seems to be in decline (or at least not as prominent as it was in previous periods, even if the rates or whatever are now stable), people are having fewer children, there’s some anecdotal evidence that relationships with immediate family are less strong (am I the only one who’s seen a whole raft of articles talking about how Millennials seem to be more willing to cut out parents or other relatives for being “problematic” or toxic”?), etc.
Even in the marketplace people seem to be more atomized. The labour movement is a shadow of its former self. For a time in the 20th century it was common for a person to spend their entire working lives with one particular company; their friends and acquaintances would be their colleagues, living in company towns was common, relying on company pensions seems to have been common-ish. This kind of loyalty to one’s employer has almost completely disappeared.
I’m sure there are other examples. My point is, can we really expect the emergence of strong and durable makeweights when the attitude of the average person towards *any* sufficiently large and established institution is disenchantment, apathy, and suspicion?
If I understand this post right, maybe it doesn’t matter that people don’t have abiding loyalties to institutions? If anything, this lack of loyalty may simply mean that their interactions with all institutions will become increasingly transactional, and this transactional attitude towards institutions writ large will result in the kind of competition that ultimately weakens the state (assuming it’s institutional competitors can offer a better deal). In the post you say that peasants didn’t have deep or abiding loyalties to nobles in the Medieval period, so maybe this general crisis of institutions isn’t really a problem, is actually perfectly consistent with the idea that we’re entering a Neomedieval period? Though I can’t help but wonder here. Even if nobility may not have enjoyed the deep loyalty of the masses in the Medieval period, other institutions—the Church (or maybe I should say the local church?), the family, one’s immediate neighbours, etc.—did and the solidity of these institutions probably played an important role in constituting the bulwark that protected liberty and kept the state to heel.
>My point is, can we really expect the emergence of strong and durable makeweights when the attitude of the average person towards *any* sufficiently large and established institution is disenchantment, apathy, and suspicion?
I don't think people will flock back to (most) churches, let alone rotary clubs or bowling leagues. but it's also true many more people than is typical feel alienated and detached from everyone else. imo culture flows downwards. the current status quo is unacceptable, but average people have no idea what to do about it and no will to think they can fix it for themselves on their own
but there are stirrings (especially in highly thoughtful online communities that place high value on self-analysis, social communication, and the written word) of small groups of people putting together their own things. and culture flows downhill. I think what this will look like, on the timescale of several generations, is small experiments in new forms that suit contemporary tastes and needs, many fail, some succeed and grow. successes are copied by people lower down the culture hill, who are more able and willing to put their own spin on what someone else is doing than try to invent something with only history and intuition to go by. and some of those experiments will figure out how to absorb larger groups of people and become the kernels of new institutions
I think the roman empire was probably like this. the republic of the second punic war and the republic of sulla and caesar were very different beasts, if you believe cato (I do), influx of greek culture, lack of external existential threats, and abundance of wealth made a hardy people decadent. augustus managed to shore up their society into something that could keep running another 200 or so years, but it never really had the same vitality or public-spiritedness. at the same time you see christianity go from a persecuted fringe cult, to an esoteric religious movement, to a new way of life for a majority of people and then eventually a society-ordering institutional power
medieval guilds emerged the same way, as men swearing blood oaths to protect each other's lives absent any rule of law. they also served as a sort of intellectual property protection in an era with no concept of such a thing: to learn the secrets of the trade, you had to be inducted over many years, and by then you were invested enough that you had more alliegence to the group than to outsiders, and the rest of the group was aligned enough to effectively wield monopoly power, so if you tried to break away it would be very hard to practice your trade independently
we've seen nascent makeweights emerge in more modern times. the pushback of the states against the federal government from mcculloch v maryland to the civil war is a good example, as is the emergence of industrial tycoons during the gilded age and their subordination by progressivism in the early 20th century. both of these were crushed by strong, central government. but, if central power becomes weaker and can't effectively fight back, makeweights will emerge that are more durable. power *always* fills the vacuum left by its absence, the question is just where it originates
you're right that people nowadays distrust all institutions, but I think that just means whatever fills the void won't look institution-shaped. tech again is instructive. bigcos are quasi-institutions, but the broader constellation of startups, venture capitalists, angel investors, weird eccentric exited new money, founders, bootstrappers, and literati (stripe press, palladium, progress studies people, random bloggers, thielbux bohemians) feel more like a decentralized shared culture. that's the kind of environment people can coordinate in in a hostile information landscape that teaches people to despise any distant authority. they hew to people who feel like local notables, friends of friends, and strangers who you trust because you are in the same place because of your shared values. more spheres like this will emerge, and if it proves to be an effective organizing pattern in the new political and information landscape, it will accrue material resources, mint prestige, develop more rigorous organization, and evolve into institutional power
>Even if nobility may not have enjoyed the deep loyalty of the masses in the Medieval period, other institutions—the Church (or maybe I should say the local church?), the family, one’s immediate neighbours, etc.—did and the solidity of these institutions probably played an important role in constituting the bulwark that protected liberty and kept the state to heel.
and I think this gets at my point with the above. "loyalty" might not be the right word, maybe more like "fidelity." few peasants probably felt anything like ideological alignment with nobility or the church, but they would definitely feel something like warmth, steadfastness, and willingness to sacrifice for the local noble if he was fair and generous or to the local priest if he was wise and inspiring. likewise catholic immigrants in new york were won over to tammany hall not because of organized party discipline or an abstract political agenda, but because the local ward bosses cultivated personal connections to the constituents and helped them with practical problems, like finding jobs in government for the men and arranging help for the elderly. the viet minh won over a lot of people this way, which the black panthers tried to emulate. the less capable the state is of taking care of people's basic needs, and the more distant and vaguely hostile it feels, the more space there is for more local, helpful, and personal authority to step in and win their loyalty
tbh the thing that actually keeps me up at night is all this stuff happened back when >80% of the population was in agriculture. now it's 3%. depending on how well factory automation goes over the next couple decades, it's entirely possible that power just doesn't really need people at all. the primary leverage the common peeople had over rulers throughout history is that they were essential, so they had to be at least placated. if the ruling class engineers a world where they just aren't needed anymore, and they don't have technology that allows them to fight back on even terms, it's entirely possible they are left to die
This was brilliant! It reminded me a lot of Fredy Perlman's writing, as well. Great minds thinking alike!
Finally got around to reading this and now I won't be able to think about anything else today.
I've enjoyed the essay with it's analysis of medieval kingdoms' power structure and other charming historical asides. If only it continued in the same vein, diving into the history of the 20th century and tracing how McCarthyism and authoritarianism gave way to current anemic states! Alas, instead of a proper argument, we'll have to be content with this brief sketch in the comments...
The curious thing about power is just how much it dislikes being studied. From medieval kings who were anointed by God to Manifest Destiny explaining the inevitability of Republicanism and to liberalism with the end of history - the legitimizing stories are comforting, but have nothing in common with the ways power is gathered and wielded. Unfortunately, America's winning streak in the 20th century convinced elites to believe their own lie: that the state is redundant and should get out of the economy and civil society. As direct state involvement became gauche, every issue was re-framed as a sub-state one. This prompted both the atrophy of state capacity and attempts to portray adversaries as "nationalist" - so married to the state that they are ready to die for it.
To see how this confused notion of nationalism obscures more than clarifies, we only have to re-read your highly misleading analysis of Russia's situation
> Despite a dictatorial regime...Russia can only manage a partial mobilization at best in its present war. They were forced to significantly dial back their conscription efforts in the face of mass discontent.
The key to understanding Russian internal politics is that the current regime is non-ideological and thus considers any mass ideology a threat. Notably, it includes both pro-Russian ethnicity nationalism and pro-Russian country (in geopolitical sense) nationalism, which stand in opposition to "patriotism" (being pro-government). Basically, the government doesn't want to share the power and with that in mind consciously declined numerous opportunities: branding invasion a war instead of SMO, employing fiery nationalistic rhetoric in place of vague threats and "red lines," minimizing mobilization, and more. I hope it's now clear why Russia shouldn't be used as a case study for limits of nationalism. Ukraine would be a much better example here as for it war is existential and consequently elites don't have much choice. But that refutes your thesis - after all nationalistic Ukraine clearly outperformed in the war!
Returning to the main point, state atrophy and vilification of nationalism are luxury goods. When times are good, elites sabotage possible checks on themselves from above (the state) and below (grassroot nationalism). However, a credible external threat can make them reverse course. Considering current geopolitical currents, I won't be surprised if many countries will rediscover the necessity of both state involvement and nationalism.
>state atrophy and vilification of nationalism are luxury goods. When times are good, elites sabotage possible checks on themselves from above (the state) and below (grassroot nationalism)
I agree with the idea that elites (especially in the united states in the 20th century) indulged in luxury beliefs and many even started to believe the stories they told, and actually have a draft on this specific topic but it would need a lot of editing to publish
>a credible external threat can make them reverse course. Considering current geopolitical currents, I won't be surprised if many countries will rediscover the necessity of both state involvement and nationalism
however I think this confuses the issue, and we have to distinguish the interests of the state from the behavior of the people. you're absolutely right that, since the gwot, states have been trying to get back to nationalism as practiced in the 20th century in an attempt to rebuild state capacity. but whether the _people_ will go along with this is a very different story
one of the points I was trying to make is I think the very different economic growth potential and communications technologies will result in only a minority throwing their lot in with such a project, another minority just as vehemently opposed no matter what the situation is, and the majority checking out (leaving the country, or leaving the labor force, slacking off, playing zero-sum games, etc). if this happens, and if ai doesn't replace a ton of human labor, you just can't have the kind of mass mobilization that enabled the napoleonic and world wars, at all
the rand paper I quote at the start has a lot to say about this, I don't know enough to comment on their analysis of china, but I think their view of the united states is quite strong
>Ukraine would be a much better example here as for it war is existential and consequently elites don't have much choice. But that refutes your thesis - after all nationalistic Ukraine clearly outperformed in the war!
ukraine outperformed at the start because russia expected them to roll over and they didn't. they were trying to land helis in kyev on day one with zero air superiority and getting shot out of the sky, they rolled tanks in and then had to roll them right back out. the fighters who remained are very brave, to be sure, but russian weakness (in both warfighting and industrial capacity) and western military aid are the major reasons why it has ground to a standstill
russia had mercenaries doing the hardest fighting and they revolted and almost sacked the capital of their employer, and millions of ukrainians fled the homeland within days of the initial invasion and stayed fled even when it was repulsed because they'd rather have a decent life elsewhere than a hard life doing their duty to the state. both of these would have been unthinkable in the world wars but were quite expected and natural during the medieval and early modern periods
Excellent article. I just finished writing an entire book on the subject of how nation-states are being disrupted by the Internet and globalization, and we've reached remarkably similar conclusions.
Your analysis of the neomedieval transition mirrors my own research. The weakening of state authority, fragmenting societies, and informalization of warfare you describe parallel what I call the 'disrupted socles' of the modern nation-state.
Where your analysis particularly resonates with my work is in the understanding that power centralizes when it can and decentralizes when it must. This reflects what I call the '5th principle of history' - that reversals in the balance between attack and defense technologies fundamentally disrupt existing power structures. The Internet, cryptography, and digital technologies have dramatically shifted this balance, just as gunpowder once undermined feudal castles.
Your observation that people increasingly view their relationship with the state as a cost/benefit calculation rather than a sacred duty is exactly what I've documented in my research - from taxation patterns to the rise of digital nomads who can choose their jurisdiction from among dozens of options : https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/digital-nomadism-disrupting-nation-states
I particularly appreciate your insight on transnational culture formation. We're seeing the rise of what I call 'multicountry' individuals versus 'monocountry' citizens - those who can leverage internet-enabled mobility to transcend national boundaries versus those bound to a single jurisdiction https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/why-monocountrism-is-holding-you-back . This mobility is no longer limited to elites but extends to anyone who can work remotely.
The article you might find interesting, complementary to yours, is '10 Principles of History for predicting the future' https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/10-principles-of-history-for-predicting which explores historical patterns that can help us understand the current transformation.
I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on how cryptocurrency might accelerate these neomedieval trends, as they further erode state monopolies.
Some comments on passages in this article:
"Indeed, it is entirely plausible that the nationalist wave of the 19th century was largely downstream of industrialization, with major changes to lifestyles and unprecedented improvements in living standards allowing the United States, Europe, and Japan to fund massive public works, immense bureaucracies, and titanic wars on the basis of this gratitude and enthusiasm."
Yes. And not only on the basis of gratitude and enthusiasm, but also of the ability to finance the State and glorify it.
Centralizing technologies reached their peak around 1950, with Western countries full of factories that created the majority of value, easy to paralyze during strikes to demand compensation, and impossible to move, and economic elites that were largely immobile, prisoners of the enclosure of national borders, making them easy to “milk” by the States, which made it possible to finance a powerful State controlling information and the economy on a national scale.
"But since the 1970s, all of these trends have reversed. The situation now is that the masses feel betrayed: they did their duty, fulfilled their side of the obligation, only to see themselves neglected and taken advantage of by states that no longer provide broad-based prosperity."
Yes. And it is also because the States no longer have the means to finance the Welfare State as they were able to do when technologies began to favor decentralization.
They are now making the same promises as in the 20th century, without having the means to do so anymore: https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/the-worst-moment-taxing-times
"Merely, "tech" is the first successful model of a decentralized, transnational culture in the present era that is capable of truly superseding national loyalties and fostering collective feeling among members who acculturate to it by choice. This model is what will wax, and many more instances of it, with radically different values and practices, will emerge in the coming decades."
There is another: as I will discuss in an article to be published very soon, I think digital nomads are a proto-network nation that will soon have a Network-State (or States).
Amazing essay. However, I completely disagree with its core idea. All of the phenomena you described are true; none of them are likely to reduce the power of the state. In fact, states that are good enough at maintaining solid public finances, and harnessing the genius of outlier individuals and communities will likely improve their position and win in this newly fragmented world.
The Roman Empire fell because it stopped growing (there is a growth ceiling without industrialization) and was on an unsustainable financial trajectory. In a country like the US, the state is much more powerful and functional. It has and will continue to force the various autonomous entities that emerge within it (be it states, corporations, NGOs or network states) to enhance its power.
Those entities will most likely oblige, as they have much to gain from the protection of a powerful government. Think Zuckerberg asking Trump to defend Meta in Europe or network states sharing their technology with the US government in exchange for the protection of their data centers on US soil.
I see no reason why the only choice is between the centralization and strength of the Roman Empire and the fragmentation and weakness of the Holy Roman Empire. What we could get is a new Industrial Revolution, as the UK had gotten when the power of the state was severely limited in the 17th century. The evolving tech could allow for a much more limited yet infinitely more powerful government to emerge throughout the 21st century despite (or even because of) all of the trends you write about.
A very good essay. Coincidentally, I found this essay just as I've about finished my own essay on neomedievalism - we've raised many of the same points.
That RAND corporation report was mind-blowing wasn't it?
What a great essay. I love Jeff Jarvis' Gutenberg Parenthesis & this really makes the case even better that in more ways than one, the post modern (or neo-medieval) world more closely resembles the medieval than the modern that directly preceded it and is in many ways a reversion to the mean.
Very interesting post!
I guess my main question is whether we should really expect middleweight or “makeweight” powers to gain in importance at the expense of the state—whether the collapse of state power and legitimacy is really what’s happening. An alternate reading of what’s happening is that there has been a general decline in the power and legitimacy of almost all social and political institutions.
At the same time that states seem to be facing headwinds, churches (or other forms of organized community worship), community associations (local bowling clubs, Rotary Clubs, etc.), etc. have also declined—no? I took this to be the key point made by Robert Putnam in his work. People are apparently lonelier now than they were in the past, suggesting that friendship is in decline. Family bonds are not as strong: coupling seems to be in decline (or at least not as prominent as it was in previous periods, even if the rates or whatever are now stable), people are having fewer children, there’s some anecdotal evidence that relationships with immediate family are less strong (am I the only one who’s seen a whole raft of articles talking about how Millennials seem to be more willing to cut out parents or other relatives for being “problematic” or toxic”?), etc.
Even in the marketplace people seem to be more atomized. The labour movement is a shadow of its former self. For a time in the 20th century it was common for a person to spend their entire working lives with one particular company; their friends and acquaintances would be their colleagues, living in company towns was common, relying on company pensions seems to have been common-ish. This kind of loyalty to one’s employer has almost completely disappeared.
I’m sure there are other examples. My point is, can we really expect the emergence of strong and durable makeweights when the attitude of the average person towards *any* sufficiently large and established institution is disenchantment, apathy, and suspicion?
If I understand this post right, maybe it doesn’t matter that people don’t have abiding loyalties to institutions? If anything, this lack of loyalty may simply mean that their interactions with all institutions will become increasingly transactional, and this transactional attitude towards institutions writ large will result in the kind of competition that ultimately weakens the state (assuming it’s institutional competitors can offer a better deal). In the post you say that peasants didn’t have deep or abiding loyalties to nobles in the Medieval period, so maybe this general crisis of institutions isn’t really a problem, is actually perfectly consistent with the idea that we’re entering a Neomedieval period? Though I can’t help but wonder here. Even if nobility may not have enjoyed the deep loyalty of the masses in the Medieval period, other institutions—the Church (or maybe I should say the local church?), the family, one’s immediate neighbours, etc.—did and the solidity of these institutions probably played an important role in constituting the bulwark that protected liberty and kept the state to heel.
>My point is, can we really expect the emergence of strong and durable makeweights when the attitude of the average person towards *any* sufficiently large and established institution is disenchantment, apathy, and suspicion?
I don't think people will flock back to (most) churches, let alone rotary clubs or bowling leagues. but it's also true many more people than is typical feel alienated and detached from everyone else. imo culture flows downwards. the current status quo is unacceptable, but average people have no idea what to do about it and no will to think they can fix it for themselves on their own
but there are stirrings (especially in highly thoughtful online communities that place high value on self-analysis, social communication, and the written word) of small groups of people putting together their own things. and culture flows downhill. I think what this will look like, on the timescale of several generations, is small experiments in new forms that suit contemporary tastes and needs, many fail, some succeed and grow. successes are copied by people lower down the culture hill, who are more able and willing to put their own spin on what someone else is doing than try to invent something with only history and intuition to go by. and some of those experiments will figure out how to absorb larger groups of people and become the kernels of new institutions
I think the roman empire was probably like this. the republic of the second punic war and the republic of sulla and caesar were very different beasts, if you believe cato (I do), influx of greek culture, lack of external existential threats, and abundance of wealth made a hardy people decadent. augustus managed to shore up their society into something that could keep running another 200 or so years, but it never really had the same vitality or public-spiritedness. at the same time you see christianity go from a persecuted fringe cult, to an esoteric religious movement, to a new way of life for a majority of people and then eventually a society-ordering institutional power
medieval guilds emerged the same way, as men swearing blood oaths to protect each other's lives absent any rule of law. they also served as a sort of intellectual property protection in an era with no concept of such a thing: to learn the secrets of the trade, you had to be inducted over many years, and by then you were invested enough that you had more alliegence to the group than to outsiders, and the rest of the group was aligned enough to effectively wield monopoly power, so if you tried to break away it would be very hard to practice your trade independently
we've seen nascent makeweights emerge in more modern times. the pushback of the states against the federal government from mcculloch v maryland to the civil war is a good example, as is the emergence of industrial tycoons during the gilded age and their subordination by progressivism in the early 20th century. both of these were crushed by strong, central government. but, if central power becomes weaker and can't effectively fight back, makeweights will emerge that are more durable. power *always* fills the vacuum left by its absence, the question is just where it originates
you're right that people nowadays distrust all institutions, but I think that just means whatever fills the void won't look institution-shaped. tech again is instructive. bigcos are quasi-institutions, but the broader constellation of startups, venture capitalists, angel investors, weird eccentric exited new money, founders, bootstrappers, and literati (stripe press, palladium, progress studies people, random bloggers, thielbux bohemians) feel more like a decentralized shared culture. that's the kind of environment people can coordinate in in a hostile information landscape that teaches people to despise any distant authority. they hew to people who feel like local notables, friends of friends, and strangers who you trust because you are in the same place because of your shared values. more spheres like this will emerge, and if it proves to be an effective organizing pattern in the new political and information landscape, it will accrue material resources, mint prestige, develop more rigorous organization, and evolve into institutional power
>Even if nobility may not have enjoyed the deep loyalty of the masses in the Medieval period, other institutions—the Church (or maybe I should say the local church?), the family, one’s immediate neighbours, etc.—did and the solidity of these institutions probably played an important role in constituting the bulwark that protected liberty and kept the state to heel.
and I think this gets at my point with the above. "loyalty" might not be the right word, maybe more like "fidelity." few peasants probably felt anything like ideological alignment with nobility or the church, but they would definitely feel something like warmth, steadfastness, and willingness to sacrifice for the local noble if he was fair and generous or to the local priest if he was wise and inspiring. likewise catholic immigrants in new york were won over to tammany hall not because of organized party discipline or an abstract political agenda, but because the local ward bosses cultivated personal connections to the constituents and helped them with practical problems, like finding jobs in government for the men and arranging help for the elderly. the viet minh won over a lot of people this way, which the black panthers tried to emulate. the less capable the state is of taking care of people's basic needs, and the more distant and vaguely hostile it feels, the more space there is for more local, helpful, and personal authority to step in and win their loyalty
tbh the thing that actually keeps me up at night is all this stuff happened back when >80% of the population was in agriculture. now it's 3%. depending on how well factory automation goes over the next couple decades, it's entirely possible that power just doesn't really need people at all. the primary leverage the common peeople had over rulers throughout history is that they were essential, so they had to be at least placated. if the ruling class engineers a world where they just aren't needed anymore, and they don't have technology that allows them to fight back on even terms, it's entirely possible they are left to die