As disillusioned citizens across the planet take to the streets, do you wonder if the world's nation states will ever get it right? Will they ever assemble and enforce enough rules and regulations to bring peace and harmony to humanity?
Does anyone really think that politics is working--aside from those in power and behind it? What if living together in peace and harmony is a more natural condition than that we experience in today's conflict-driven culture? We are community animals with built-in empathy, good at organizing things and helping each other out. The most essential and reliable features of our culture arose without top-down planning by a state that has one basic objective--to stay in power. We have enjoyed enduring civilizations in the past governed wholly from the bottom-up, without need of a shepherd and sheepdogs. We can do it again - and are more connected than ever before.
Much of our world is already well governed, from the bottom up, and we struggle to find anything of lasting value in it that arose from the state. Where the state steps into our affairs, the lost freedom to choose breaks feedback loops that effortlessly weave us together. Evolution is diverted - and we get things to complain about.
The State Is Out Of Date reassures us that politics is not even the primary game in town, though it sometimes may seem like the only one. It is a book for all those who wonder why politics isn't working and what would.
