Do not underestimate how quickly human organization that has withstood the test of time can diverge into anarchy. Do not think that a state is a state, a province is a province and a Prime Minister is a Prime Minister.
In unstable times, the countries and people that succeed dance with chaos and birth institutions and theories that are integral to the global order going forward.
The countries that fail, especially in post colonial times, are those which obsess over perfecting a method of governing that is on the path to being obscure and worthless. The biggest sin a people can commit is being unable to adapt before they absolutely must.
The King is dead. The State is dying. Long live the people. We pushed out the King in 1947 and got to building a state. Watched a populist split the nation, barely learned. Watched the internet pass by on our PTCL lines. Slowly assimilated to the West through overseas gifts and Chinese imports. We might let the era of decentralized manufacturing and artificial intelligence pass us by.
We are still trying to perfect statecraft through a country connected by a military, opposed to its neighbor. Like two kids fighting over a toy at 1, then 4, then 20, then 60, until they both turn in their graves wondering what the value of that toy was beside keeping them relevant, beside giving their peers a laugh once in a while, and a scare when they decided to point guns at each other. The states are based on each other: without Pakistan, India does not have domain to exist; without India, Pakistan does not. They are both secular countries with multiple nations within. There is no reason Kerala cannot trade with Karachi freely, and no reason that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would want to have the same laws as Sindh.
This is a call for microstates within the Indian subcontinent. We have Bangladesh and we can do the same with the rest. There is no reason for these bulky, inefficient and corrupt governments to draw lines on a map, keeping alive the legacy of the British, to a people that have been connected for millennia.
More so, there is no space for bulky states, for inefficient government. The future is near.
There are 3D printers now, yes. There is artificial intelligence now, yes. There are drones now, yes. They are unable to shift states at this stage in time. Remember, though, how computers, cell phones and the internet were in the 1990’s? And then in 2011 they shifted the political sphere of the Middle East for a generation to come? In 2025, there will be expertly positioned, 3D printed, drone guns ready to grant anarchy to a people who are bored and not seeing progress from their inefficient states.
Microstates connect people to their government and niches keep these microstates focused on progress. A common niche keeps them relevant competitively with other states and imbues a sense of rational patriotism. This is the law of specialization adjusted to the scale of the state; the lean startup adjusted to post-colonialism.
With the advancement of existing technology and the influx of new technology, only nimble states focused on niches will succeed. All others, bulky states, unfocused states, poor states that can’t adapt and focus, will die into oblivion, becoming irrelevant, and stuck on Earth while the rest of the world throws parties on Elysium.
