According to the case made in the book "The Sovereign Individual", the nation state rose to power as a natural consequence of the conditions of the industrial age.

Gunpowder made obsolete the old technology such as armed cavalry, and castles. That set the stage for the efficient smelting of iron, which lead to factories.

Factories are very centralised - making them vulnerable to vandalism and also to taxation. The factory owners needed the protective watch of governments to maintain their properties.

Now we are moving into the information age, and it is much more common to have digital property, in the form of websites and cryptocurrency. In many ways, the nation state is powerless to protect these new forms of property, and in many cases it is powerless to tax them.

Still the belief in the authority of the nation state remains. How long will it hold up? Kurt explores that question and more in this episode of The Paradise Paradox!