Summary of James Dale Davidson, Peter Thiel - preface & William Rees-Mogg's The Sovereign Individual

By IRB Media

Get the Summary of James Dale Davidson, Peter Thiel - preface & William Rees-Mogg's The Sovereign Individual in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: Few observers of the late twentieth century have their fingers so presciently on the pulse of the global political and economic realignment ushering in the new millennium as do James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. Their bold prediction of disaster on Wall Street in Blood in the Streets was borne out by Black Tuesday. In their ensuing bestsellar, The Great Reckoning, published just weeks before the coup attempt against Gorbachev, they analyzed the pending collapse of the Soviet Union and foretold the civil war in Yugoslavia and other events that have proved to be among the most searing developments of the past few years.

In The Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg explore the greatest economic and political transition in centuries -- the shift from an industrial to an information-based society. This transition, which they have termed "the fourth stage of human society," will liberate individuals as never before, irrevocably altering the power of government. This outstanding book will replace false hopes and fictions with new understanding and clarified values.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Dec 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781669344643

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on James Dale Davidson, Peter Thiel - preface and William Rees-Mogg's The Sovereign Individual

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The coming of the new millennium has been overshadowed by the Y2K computer problem, which many believed would cause the world to end.

#2

The fourth stage of social organization, information societies, is coming, and will pose a huge challenge to the control of violence. As the returns to violence fall, the returns to localised, random violence such as crime rise. This will cause crime to become more random and localized.

#3

The costs of supporting institutionalized religion have risen to a historic extreme, just as the costs of supporting government have risen to an absurd extreme. Technological developments will inevitably lead to the downsize of religions and the rise of new, more efficient institutions.

#4

The author expects the year 2000 to witness a complete overhaul of the world’s economic systems, with the Information Age taking center stage. It will change how we live our lives, and how we think about work and the economy.

#5

The coming transformation will be both good and bad. The good news is that for the first time, those who can educate and motivate themselves will be almost entirely free to invent their own work and realize the full benefits of their own productivity. Genius will be unleashed, freed from both the oppression of government and the drags of racial and ethnic prejudice.

#6

The Information Age will be the age of upward mobility. It will afford far more equal opportunity for the billions of humans in parts of the world that never shared fully in the prosperity of industrial society. The brightest, most successful and ambitious of these will emerge as truly Sovereign Individuals.

#7

The good news is that politicians will no longer be able to dominate, suppress, and regulate the greater part of commerce in this new realm. That is good news for the rich and better news for the not so rich. The liberation of a large part of the global economy from political control will oblige whatever remains of government to operate on more nearly market terms.

#8

The idea of the sovereign individual will have a profound impact on the future, both good and bad. It will shrink the realm of compulsion and widen the scope of private control over resources.

#9

The new age of the Sovereign Individual will change governments and economies, and will likely be unimaginable to the present generation.

#10

The Information Age will lead to great individual autonomy, but also great individual responsibility. It will cause a massive shift in wealth, and with it, the ability of governments to redistribute it.

#11

The changes brought on by the Information Revolution will not only make governments poorer, but they will also have to adapt to deal with an increasingly sovereign individual.

#12

The modern nation-state is breaking down, and with it, so is the power of central governments. These central governments have been trying to stop the spread of violence by controlling it, but now that violence will be spread outside of central control.

#13

The Information Age will change the way work is done, and companies will have to adapt to this new reality.

#14

The state will not be able to meet the demands of the public, and as a result, it will have to resort to covert and violent means to restrict access to liberating technologies. In the future, individuals will be able to declare their monetary independence through the use of cyber money.

#15

The author warns that the coming cybereconomy will be met with similar, if not more, government intervention and control.

#16

The transition to a post-industrial society may not be as smooth as we think. Resentments may grow among those of middle talent in currently rich countries who feel their way of life is being threatened by technological change.

#17

While the transition will be difficult for many, it will be even harder for those that have no stake in the old world, and are forced to simply adapt to the new. Those that have a stake in the old world, and are willing to fight to keep it, are known as belongers.

#18

The rise of the information society will not be welcomed by everyone, and there will be those that react violently against it. The clash between the new and the old will shape the early years of the new millennium.

#19

The revolution will be ushered in by the commercialization of information, which will alter the way that assets are created and protected. This will lead to a dramatic extension of markets. Moreover, individuals will achieve increasing levels of autonomy over their economic sovereignty.

#20

The commercialization of sovereignty will make the terms and conditions of citizenship in the nation-state as dated as chivalric oaths seemed after the collapse of feudalism. Instead of relating to a powerful state as citizens to be taxed, the Sovereign Individuals of the twenty-first century will be customers of governments operating from a