Full circle: state of nature to virtual state of nature

Just as technological and economic innovations in an earlier period underpinned the evolution of the centralized nation state, current innovations are undermining those same states. The great nation states, despite their military prowess, are doomed like the dinosaurs of old, unable, unwilling or insufficiently nimble to meet the threat to their dominance posed by agile virtual organizations that have no sense of national identity.

0 Comments
Bread line Dayton
Bread line Dayton: Library of Congress

First the workers, then the retirees – victims of the cut-and-paste management of virtual organization

Across the nation, cities and states are watching Detroit's largest-ever municipal bankruptcy filing with great trepidation. Years of underfunded retirement promises to public sector workers, which helped lay Detroit low, could plunge them into a similar and terrifying financial hole. Thanks to a patchwork of accounting practices and rosy investment assumptions, it's not even clear just how big a financial hole many states and cities have dug for themselves.

0 Comments