the state

like a moth-ball which goes from solid to gas directly, I expect the nation-state to evaporate without first going into a gooey, inoperative mess, before some global cyberstate commands the political ether. 

... the role of the nation-state will change dramatically and there will be no more room for nationalism than there is for smallpox.

Five years later the nation state looks somewhat more resilient than the pox. Why? Arguably that's because, as Linda Weiss noted in The Myth of the Powerless State (Ithaca, Cornell Uni Press 98), it fulfils fundamental needs. 

We've noted the excellent Global Business Regulation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 00) by John Braithwaite & Peter Drahos and the drier The Regulation of International Trade (London, Routledge 99) by Michael Trebilcock & Robert Howse.  

Globalization in Question: The International Economy & the Possibilities of Governance (London, Polity 99) by Paul Hirst & Grahame Thompson and Eric Helleiner's States & The Reemergence of Global Finance: From Bretton Woods to the 1990s (Ithaca, Cornell Uni Press 96) offer a more positive view than Susan Strange's The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 96) and Mad Money: When Markets Outgrow Governments (Ann Arbor, Uni of Michigan Press 98).

John Wiseman's Global Nation: Australia & the Politics of Globalisation (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 98) provides a local perspective.  Living On Thin Air: The New Economy (London, Viking 99) is another view from the Left by UK 'knowledge entrepreneur' Charles Leadbeater.

Kenichi Ohmae's  The End of the Nation State (London, HarperCollins 95) and The Invisible Continent: Four Strategic Imperatives of the New Economy (New York, HarperBusiness 00), like his The Borderless World,  are views by the McKinsey guru.  Entertaining ... but the state's alive and well, as you'll find if you forget your passport or ABN. There's a less convincing, because more detailed, recitation in Richard Rosecrance's The Rise of the Virtual State: Wealth & Power in the Coming Century (New York, Basic Books 00). 

For a panoramic global perspective why not browse Martin Van Creveld's The Rise & Decline Of The State (Cambridge, Cambridge 99), the big picture from 1350 to 1998. It's more subtle than Armand Mattelart's Networking the World, 1794-2000 (Minneapolis, Uni of Minnesota Press 00).

William Taylor & Alan Webber edited Going Global (New York, Viking 96): interviews with Ohmae, venture capital czar John Doerr, Nestle Vice-President Barbara Kux and others.  Essential reading if you're a Fast Company member, otherwise not.

     concentration & competition

The role of referees on the digital playing field - level or otherwise - remains contentious. One starting point is the valedictory address on Rethinking Antitrust Policies For The New Economy by US Asst Attorney General Joel Klein.

Tony Freyer's Regulating Big Business: Antitrust in Great Britain & America 1880-1990 (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 92) provides a useful introduction to competition law and politics. 

It's more useful than Charles Geisst's facile Monopolies in America: Empire Builders & their Enemies from Jay Gould to Bill Gates (New York, Oxford Uni Press 00) and the paranoid Trust On Trial: How the Microsoft Case is Reframing the Rules of Competition (New York, Perseus 00) by Richard McKenzie.  

Perspectives on Microsoft are offered in our detailed Web profile guide and in the experiences of IBM and AT&T.  Paul Ceruzzo's excellent A History of Modern Computing (Cambridge, MIT Press 98) in discussing the IBM anti-trust litigation notes that

The essays in The Future of Software (Cambridge, MIT Press 95) edited by Derek Leebaert suggest that the 'road ahead' won't be owned by Microsoft.  

Peter Temin's The Fall of the Bell System (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 88) and Gerald Brock in Telecommunication Policy for the Information Age: From Monopoly to Competition (Cambridge, Harvard Uni Press 94) consider the fall of Ma Bell, as much a result of innovations as of government regulators.  

Another perspective is provided in Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 99) by Stephen Adams & Orville Butler. 


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