The Future of Individual Power

Yesterday, US President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin to tell him to "do something" about the cyber criminals located in Russia who have been attacking private companies and the US government. We have all become used to the unwelcome development of cyber criminals attacking institutions that we may not notice the profound shift in organizational power that these groups represent. There have always been organized crime families and groups, but few have so clearly represented the interests of their host nation in international affairs.

In Russia, these groups are not paid by the state, they do not take orders from the state, and they clearly understand that they will be tolerated as long as they do not attack Russian governments, companies, or allies. If they were paid, they would be employees, contractors, or mercenaries. They have no contractual obligation or relation to the state. Yet they clearly act in ways that are of service to their host.

In 2011, a former US President Innovation Fellow, founded Code for America, which employs a small number of technology innovators to organize "brigades" of volunteers in cities to build new kinds of public services based on data and applications. The leaders and volunteers create apps that help citizens plan bus routes, apply for social services, and make the tangle of bureaucratic programs easier to navigate. These groups are not employed by the state. They earn no wages from the state under contract and they have no legal obligations to the state. They get support from donations, and their volunteer programs often spin off startups that earn a living by selling apps that provide the new public services.

You may wonder why I am comparing Russian Cyber Criminals and Code for America volunteers in the same article. They obviously have very different values and goals. But their historical significance is the same. They are examples of how the largest hierarchical institutions in our society (governments) are rapidly adapting the allocation of power from the top to the network.

For thousands of years, power has been accumulated in hierarchical structures of a few individuals and cascaded down throughout society. Governments themselves were relatively small institutions until the early 20th Century, and they have become the largest institutions in our societies in the last 100 years. Bureaucracy itself is a philosophy of power, invented by Max Weber (a philosopher), designed to limit the power of autocracy and slow decision-making. The irony of the 20th Century is how bureaucracy has created new aggregations of power in the size of state governments.

Many governments hire contractors to perform public services. The contract defines the kinds of services and the wages to be paid. But non-contracted, non-public entities performing public services that generate their own revenue sources new.

But what is the essence of these new non-state actors in public policy? Are Code for America volunteers and Russian Cyber Criminals outliers?

I would argue they are part of a global movement that is re-allocating power from the center to the individual that is the result of several important developements especially in the last 40 years:

1. The proliferation of air travel.
2. The growth of the internet.
3. The growth of a global, urban, middle class that is educated, connected, and mobile.
4. The impact of startups on the nature of work.

Spain just introduced legislation to create a new Digital Nomad Visa program providing significant tax benefits to attract mobile labor. These are people who do not have Spanish citizenship, do not speak Spanish, and will not live in Spain beyond 3 months to a year. They are a new class of stateless workers who bring skills and ideas, generate revenue and pay some taxes (VAT mostly). They perform contract work for many employers. They have no specific race, gender, religious affiliation, sexual orientation or social connection to where they live and work. Yet nations around the world are competing to offer them attractive incentives to perform their work on their territory.

For centuries, nations have defined who can live work within their borders by religious affiliation, language, and political association. Since the late 20th Century, they have allowed limited numbers of travelers to reside in their nation for the purpose of tourism for up to 90 days. Business people had to apply for special visas and pay taxes beyond 30 days.

Many startups today employ people in different countries. Sometimes this is accidental, based on existing social networks from prior work activities. Sometimes it is deliberate, to acquire the best skills no matter where the person lives. The effect is the same. Work is no longer defined by physical location in a place, which has been the definition of agricultural, industrial, and information based work for thousands of years.

Up until recently, Digital Nomads used 90-day tourist visas to travel the globe and work in different countries for 3 month increments. Now, nations are writing legislation to empower these workers to stay and work for years.

Like the Russian cyber criminals and the Code for America volunteers, Startups and Digital Nomads are challenging ancient power structures by redefining what it means to belong to a group, location, and structure.

We were once all measured by our loyalty to an employer, government, nation, and religion. We were bound to live in a town or city, work for one company, serve one religion, identify as one gender, give our lives for one nation. Increasingly, we can live and work almost anywhere we want, for many employers, with or without a religion, for many nations.

These are profound changes to the nature of citizenship and the allocation of power away from aggregations and towards the individual. Aggregated power will not dissolve, but its formation and allocation will become more dynamic, stateless, and fluid.