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I was wondering if the concept of exokernels could be applied to national governments. What I was thinking of, was if the concept was used to build a framework (treaty) by which several governments can exist on the same general area of land. Much like how an exokernel can give memory to the kernels running on top of it, the treaty allows each government to own and trade subdivisions of that land how ever they see fit, so you may have cities that over the course of time, suburbs and streets and even individual blocks of land (especially historical landmarks) have been traded between governments. Each government has their own legal system (though treaties would allow for cross conviction of citizens, as committed on foreign government territory would be common), economy (you may have several socialist, capitalist, merchant economies functioning together), currency (some may share, but generally citizens would have to carry enough multiple currencies), and laws.

And by the scale of this, I don't mean just 2 countries co-existing in a single territory, but I'm thinking in the range of 50-100 governments on a continent, some superpowers which may own whole cities, but most are small independent governments that govern a small village or suburb in a city.

Also, this separates cities and nations, for example, cities would be mostly independent entities that survive much longer than the nations that claim it (much like with current governments), and in cities where multiple governments have control, the city council will generally be an intergovernment organisation that provides law enforcement and infrastructure in the area, with permission to enforce/build/manage the city's land regardless of the nation it belongs to (and if one nation doesn't agree to this condition, political pressure from the larger nations would likely force them to).

I have often wondered why countries are always restricted to territories. How about a state without exclusive rights to a certain piece of land? Maybe the governments in your example could share territory.

Hobbes wrote:I have often wondered why countries are always restricted to territories. How about a state without exclusive rights to a certain piece of land? Maybe the governments in your example could share territory.

Native Americans dont neccessarily have a homeland anymore but they're considered a nation within a nation. There are 'reservations' but think about that word. Only the person who owns the land can 'reserve' it for some particular use, so just calling the land a 'reservation' means you own it.

Oh, and Andrew, I think you need to step away from your code and get some sleep bro.

If there is some kind of "government" was built up, the first thing people will try to do is kick everyone else out of the way, and then try to with hold as much land as possible. There is no way to force them not to do so, unless you have another "root government" on top of everything. Such a thing can't exist anywhere than in OSes. (****!)

quanganht wrote:Such a thing can't exist anywhere than in OSes. (****!)

I just gave an example of one. It's not the case that they do not exist, it's just not very common.

tantrikwizard wrote:Native Americans dont neccessarily have a homeland anymore but they're considered a nation within a nation. There are 'reservations' but think about that word. Only the person who owns the land can 'reserve' it for some particular use, so just calling the land a 'reservation' means you own it.

That's not exactly what I had in mind. Native Americans were forced into this situation.

Suppose there were several governements on this planet, not governing countries but people, and you could choose which one you'd want to belong to?

Not realistic, I know. Territorial behavior is too deeply nested into our brains.

Doesn't work.

I could list several reasons, but the simplest is: Gouvernment has responsibility for territory. Building and maintaining roads. Enforcing territorial / environmental / structural laws (like, building security etc.). Customs / tariffs. I don't think you could sort this out for your "exo-gouvernment" idea.

Then think of employers who'd have to bother with people falling under a hundred different jurisdictions, including employment and union laws.

I agree with Solar on this, the United States had a very similar system in place immediately after it's formation. Individual states and districts had huge amount of autonomy, different currencies, armies, and so forth. It turned out to be a total mess, and we ended up writing our constitution because of it. Much of this autonomy remained for individual states until the civil war as well. In general it's prone to friction, resources disputes, taxation disparity and legal overhead. It tends to form systems which are simultaneously antagonistic to smaller interests while ineffective against larger ones able to maneuver themselves through the gaps in each layer.

In this age of globalization there's actually a large number of examples of what can go wrong. Some of the flaky financial products involved in some of the current financial crisis were the result of regulation skirting across various borders. I remember reading an example where Bear Sterns offered a bond product that was offered under a combination of New York State, UK and Dutch law for example. Likewise here in the US our famous insurance industry is actually regulated almost entirely at the state level still, which has helped lead to the current debacle that is our healthcare system and the beast that is AIG. Most of this would not be possible were not for loopholes in our legal system at the national level, but it happens in some odd forms elsewhere. If anyone wants a good laugh they should check out how IKEA is actually structured as a business.

Cognition wrote:I agree with Solar on this, the United States had a very similar system in place immediately after it's formation. Individual states and districts had huge amount of autonomy, different currencies, armies, and so forth.

That scenario could be applied to the entire world (countries instead of the states) with modern globalisation. Imagine having a single UN-currency (Earthero?)

Having governments so intermixed that anyone can form their own would effectively be the same as having a world without a government.

A completely free market which can manage itself wouldn't be entirely chaos, a de facto currency would soon emerge. Renting or purchasing (then paying tax for) permission to use land which is inside of a landlord's territory may be preferable if you know the landlord will has the purchasing power of organising protection (police) and utilities (electricity, water, sewage, waste disposal). Non for profit organisations (religions and charities) could provide services for the poor.

It main problem would be regulation - it would be hard to enforce. Non-for-profit organisations supporting human rights, the environment, education would emerge, but they couldn't really enforce something unless they were large enough to have a decent military to overthrow the violators. In which case, I see all the NFP's pooling their resources together into some sort of omni-organization that monitors the world, in which case you now have a government..

That may have been how the first government's came about. But I think it would have more so been the land lord scenario (we'll offer you land, protection, and services if you agree to pay tax) than the non-for-profit organisation scenario

MessiahAndrw wrote:A completely free market which can manage itself wouldn't be entirely chaos, a de facto currency would soon emerge. Renting or purchasing (then paying tax for) permission to use land which is inside of a landlord's territory may be preferable if you know the landlord will has the purchasing power of organising protection (police) and utilities (electricity, water, sewage, waste disposal).

Do you know the "Shadowrun" universe?

MessiahAndrw wrote:

Cognition wrote:I agree with Solar on this, the United States had a very similar system in place immediately after it's formation. Individual states and districts had huge amount of autonomy, different currencies, armies, and so forth.

That scenario could be applied to the entire world (countries instead of the states) with modern globalisation. Imagine having a single UN-currency (Earthero?)

There are people advocating such things, but I think there are still legitimate questions about concepts like sovereignty and national/cultural identity that will leave national borders in tact for quite some time (note this doesn't bar forming things like free trade zones and so forth). People have advocated taking NAFTA a step further and creating a currency called the "Amero" as well.

Having governments so intermixed that anyone can form their own would effectively be the same as having a world without a government.

A completely free market which can manage itself wouldn't be entirely chaos, a de facto currency would soon emerge. Renting or purchasing (then paying tax for) permission to use land which is inside of a landlord's territory may be preferable if you know the landlord will has the purchasing power of organising protection (police) and utilities (electricity, water, sewage, waste disposal). Non for profit organisations (religions and charities) could provide services for the poor.

It main problem would be regulation - it would be hard to enforce. Non-for-profit organisations supporting human rights, the environment, education would emerge, but they couldn't really enforce something unless they were large enough to have a decent military to overthrow the violators. In which case, I see all the NFP's pooling their resources together into some sort of omni-organization that monitors the world, in which case you now have a government..

That may have been how the first government's came about. But I think it would have more so been the land lord scenario (we'll offer you land, protection, and services if you agree to pay tax) than the non-for-profit organisation scenario

That stills seems like effectively having a large centralized government to me. Perhaps the tax structure and representation mechanisms would be different, but not much else. There's also potential flaws in this as you'd likely see income polarization, which in turn would lead to the formation of slums of some sort and a class structure arising from it all. Call me pessimistic, but I don't believe as many people would pay for services to the poor if they didn't have to. If you made these things mandatory across the board and collection for them independent you're essentially centralizing even more power and what you'd end up with is something akin to a political party with it's own army. It might sound cynical, but I could see that situation turning out pretty badly. That said I do think technology is going to force governments to rethink representation and voting systems in the near future. The largest one I can think of here in the US is the electoral college, which is essentially an antiquated political structure that was necessary back in the horse and buggy days.

The concepts are interesting, but I think a lot of what you're discussing at this point is as you've noted kind of retracing how we probably got to where we are as a species. I don't know that taking a step back to point where the structure of society would really benefit things much in the end, as I picture we'd end up with something that strongly resembles what we had anyways. The last time we really had such a reset event was during the dark ages (at least in the Western world), if any of us ever lived long enough to see it through I bet we'd all feel funny standing around 1000 years later and looking at something eerily similar to Rome.