The Underground Offers No Escape
January 2002 -- In recent decades, friends of liberty have celebrated the new economy not only for the tangible benefits it brings but also for its promise of liberation. Technology has dramatically increased the mobility of people, capital, and information, and thus provided them with escape routes from the heavy hand of government. In a global capital market, for example, where a mouse-click can send money across borders in a microsecond, central bankers in Washington, London, Tokyo, and elsewhere can no longer impose onerous controls with impunity. E-commerce with strong encryption, some have argued, will prove impossible for governments to tax, and the Internet will undermine governments' power to censor information. Some theorists have confidently predicted that the nation-state will become obsolete. How can you rule people and things that won't stay put?
Oct 13, 2010
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