Taking "The Network State" Seriously
The Network || the State
It’s been nearly three years since the publication of Balaji Srinivasan’s book on how to start a new country. His offshoot Network School offers a temporary residency “society as a service” program for startup founders who fancy themselves part of the global networked elite who work anywhere, have ties to nowhere, and live up there (in the cloud). The stated aim of this program is to serve as a launchpad for bootstrapping future startup societies. At $1500 a month for room and board + gym, it’s not a bad deal for enterprising young founders. But detractors will say its insufficient. The Network State promised new countries, not just sleep-away camps for digital nomads. We’ve yet to see a meaningful network state under its aspirational definition:1
A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.
Its defensible that programs like these are baby steps in the right direction. That it will take some time to cultivate and search for the most viable founders and models for establishing a network state. It is a truism that all great things, even new countries, must start somewhere.
The focus on physical implementation (or lackthereof) misses the core thesis of The Network State—that the network is more powerful than the state. This confusion is borne out of necessity for marketing a concept as an investment opportunity. The internal logic of the network state as a collection of products or subscription services masks its most central and powerful idea. It is not that the network is a state, but that it supersedes the state.
What it really portends is the rise of a superior information structure. That this structure may or may not eventually own physical territory, command an army, or yield fat returns to VCs, is beside the point. These claims sell the idea and make it sexy, but obfuscate the true point of contention: whether or not the network can and will succeed the state because it has more optimal and coherent information flows. Thinking through this question unlocks the answers to all others—don’t lose the polis for the trees.
https://thenetworkstate.com/the-network-state-in-one-sentence