Forgive me if I have been ignoring current issues. I’m trying very hard to look far into the future that it is becoming difficult to see what is right in front of me. In fact, I’m feeling myself start to withdraw from this world and enter a world of abstraction. As much as I hate abstraction, theory is useful and I’m trying to do more forest thinking, as opposed to tree thinking. I’m trying to see how liberty can survive in the “long term,” for this century, that is.

Hypothesis: With the growth of population, the modern world needed professional bureaucracies to deal with increasingly complex issues. In the postmodern world, the complexities of issues have outstripped even the abilities of a professional bureaucracy. Hence, the need for a new federalism, perhaps. We also need to figure out how to harness the wisdom of crowds.

I’m still unsure about the ways this new decentralization of power will take place. I’ve been thinking about the radical ways in which the internet can create communities that are not geographically-based. I’m not sure what implications this has.

In any case, even without our current crises, our democracy is slowly dying and the body politic is becoming corrupt. The lack of agency, the lack of participation, along with the growth of the professional bureaucracy, is a threat to the continuation of liberty.

Any thoughts?