The article suggested that unless people turn to the State for protection from "anarchy" the State will fade. Here is my argument (recycled from a few years ago) as to why State power is fading: I expect that State authority will continue to weaken over the next few years for the following reasons: 1) The ruled outnumber the rulers. 2) The ruled outmass the rulers. 3) Traditionally, the rulers used a number of techniques to maintain their rule: a) Ideology of acquiescence and consent - The will of God, tradition, the will of the people, 'you can't fight City Hall,' Death and Taxes, The Government is All of Us, etc. b) The application of superior mobility and organization - we are everywhere, omniscience, omnipresence, etc. c) Point force. A mass of armed men in the field. 'Reduce the city. Leave no stone standing upon stone and sow the ground with salt.' 4) The effectiveness of the above require an ignorant, docile, immobile, and uncritical population: a) Respect for authority is on a rapid downward trend. Disobedience is widespread. One-third to one-half of the housing units in Nassau and Suffolk counties are illegal "in-law" apartments. Seventy-five percent of those hiring domestic workers in the US do not comply with tax and employment laws. Hundreds of thousands of assault rifle owners in New Jersey and California have not turned in their guns. I see no examples of any increase in respect for state authority. b) The mobility and organization of bureaucratic organizations is now less than the average private organization. Nation states are still geographically bound, we are not. The individual or small group has always had better organization than the State - he/it has just had less power. c) Point force only works against concentrated opponents. It is useless against mass movements of goods nd people like the market unless a totalitarian clampdown is used. If movement continues, State power is lost. 5. Freedom is not only an ideology, it is also what you get when people make relatively unconstrained choices. Even the most broken slave makes choices. When a modern, technologically advanced, mobile people makes choices, they can overwhelm control mechanisms. All they have to do is *choose*. They need not be ideologically committed libertarians. 6. Is there immigration control if millions of immigrants are on the march (here *and* in Europe)? Is there gun control if the number of guns possessed by the population (here *and* in Europe) continues to increase. If the amount of the world's wealth that is legally or illegally outside of the tax system increases, is taxation succeeding? 7. Predictions. Per capita gun ownership will continue to increase in all of the OECD countries as it has for years. Legal and illegal immigrants as a percentage of total population will continue to grow. The percentage of the Gross World Product that does not flow through the coffers of the world's States will continue to grow as it has for the last ten years. 8. Unless the above trend lines reverse and the "coercive sector" regains some moral authority freedom of choice will continue to grow. For example, if gun ownership per capita continues to grow, at some point everyone who wants a gun will have one. No gun control. 9. Controlling people is difficult. It has all of the normal problems of hydrology with the added complication that in this case the "water" is intelligent. Controlling smart, rich, well- equipped people is a doomed occupation. Unless they can figure some way to chain us back in the fields, they're doomed. DCF "Though he may be poor He will never be a slave"