Insurgency, like war, has an enduring nature and a changing character. It remains a strategy entailing violence used by the weak and desperate against a power system. Often (but not always), this pits a non-state or proto-state organization against a state…The enduring nature of insurgency includes three core functions: an insurgency must survive, it must strengthen itself, and it must weaken the power structure or state.
The Internet, New Media, and the Evolution of Insurgency by Steven Metz
In terms of how to structure society, there is a war between hierarchies and networks. Both hierarchies and networks are at odds with each other’s approach and find each other threatening.
Broadly speaking, Kamala Harris’s campaign for U.S. president represents old-school hierarchy, whereas Donald Trump’s campaign represents networks. Time is on the side of established hierarchies, what with Kamala already being vice president and a theoretical shoo-in for president, whereas space is on the side of Trump’s broad, diffuse, and lingering network approach, which has enjoyed mass appeal with approximately half of the United States still supporting him despite Kamala’s assent.
The United States checks all the boxes for lending itself to a network orientation as it encourages initiative, risk-taking, and entrepreneurship. As the Republican party has been co-opted by Trumpism, i.e., the fascistic MAGA movement spearheaded by Trump, it can no longer claim the mantle of being old-school hierarchical and conservative. Trump has voiced disdain for the Constitution that binds the United States body politic and culture.
The Trump campaign linking up with Silicon Valley’s Peter Thiel through the nomination of Thiel’s ally, J.D. Vance, as Trump’s VP pick represents a sea change in the perceived legitimacy of MAGA as anything other than a regressive, (Christo)fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, xenophobic bottom-feeders movement. It’s back to the future with the merger of retrograde, reptilian-brain-soothing, 20th-century familiar tropes uneasily paired up with paradigm-busting futurists.
Last week, The San Francisco Standard published How billionaires Ben and Felicia Horowitz made a MAGA U-turn: They once hosted Kamala Harris and handed out food at Glide. Now they donate to MAGA candidates and live inside a four-gated mansion in Nevada. The “Come on in, the water’s warm” ethos, as championed by venture capitalist David Sacks, a sort of pseudo-ambassador of the tech elite class to encourage reluctant converts to Trumpism, is now loud and proud with J.D. Vance as Trump’s VP pick. It appears that the tech vanguard regards Trump as a useful idiot for overthrowing democracy and installing a technocracy.
A network approach to structuring society suits narcissist Trump well, even given his personal propensity for authoritarianism or traditional top-down hierarchy. The same could be said for tech bros advocating for a paradigmatic upset of structuring society into startup cities or network states—essentially fiefdoms of techno-feudalism, which will presumably be run by thought leaders mini-dictators who have merged with the machine.
Network Theory
Network theory is the study of relationships between people, computers, and almost anything else in life. It depicts these relationships by connecting nodes with links.
Social network theory, also known as social network analysis, is a sociological theory that studies social relationships, connections, and interaction patterns among social groups. It views social networks as made up of nodes, which represent individuals, and ties, which represent the relationships between them.
All networks, including Trump’s MAGA movement, are comprised of nodes (circles), i.e., people who are influencers/opinion leaders connected by ties or bridges (short lines) of varying lengths to network members and those people who are “weak ties,” with one foot in the network and one foot out into the greater milieu.
Zooming in, narcissism fits squarely into network theory, as it functions as a religious network in which each narcissist cult leader is the center of his own network, comprised of clusters. Clusters encompass the small circles called nodes—opinion leaders, members, and weak ties—all connected by short lines called ties or links, which can function as bridges to others. The length of the short line, no matter its term, indicates the degree of closeness between nodes.
Hierarchies relate to power in a top-down vertical structure, whereas networks are decentralized, distributed, and horizontal. Networks are fractals, where every part of the network is identical to the total network. If you take a network and cut it in half ad infinitum, each half will be identical to each other. Networks are isomorphic—‘iso’ is Greek for “same,” as in the same shape and form, ‘morphic.’ Isomorphism means every part of the network looks like every other part of the network with the same structure and the same function.
Similar to networks, narcissism as a system of power and control also encourages and facilitates uniformity of thought, action, and deed. Narcissists create networks by drawing the victim into their sphere of influence — business, friend, or family group—as a method of tightening up the vise grip of control should a victim become a wayward lamb and dare think about exiting the cult. The more the victim is ensnared in the narcissist’s social web, the harder it is to extricate oneself from the narcissist’s stranglehold. At stake for the victim is losing all newfound contacts vis-à-vis the narcissist as punishment for non-compliance. A reputational smear campaign is a ready-made tool in the narcissist toolkit to keep the abused on the straight and narrow.
Ironically, for a party that has lambasted controlling elite overlords, socialism, and communism amongst many outsider groups, it is the imperative of the Republican Party to induce, compel, and mandate conformity at every turn. Traditional Republicans do not celebrate heterogeneity in a populous; just the opposite, they frown upon any lifestyle that deviates from the imprimatur of 1950s, Leave it to Beaver.
Communist Mao’s China promised a Utopia that never arrived, predicated on cultish groupthink, that if everyone were just good little foot soldiers in lockstep solidarity, all the societal pieces would fall right into place. No amount of being browbeaten into submission by Mao’s Little Red Book, the only handbook for education under Mao that he, of course, authored as the omniscient Dear Leader, ever helped to realize this Utopian dream.
There is a glitch here in this overall assessment thus far that qualitatively hierarchies are superior to a network as deduced from an initial rough framing of Kamala (hierarchy) v. Trump (network) would suggest. To be locked into this framing would implicate dichotomous thinking or splitting, endemic to narcissism. To step back from binary black-and-white thinking, it’s necessary to objectively look at the pluses and minuses of both systems, also recognizing that there is fluidity between each system. It’s possible for a hierarchy to (d)evolve into a network and a network into a hierarchy.
In his seminar Future is Networking, Hierarchies Dead, Prof. Sam Vaknin states,
“Hierarchies start formally, though if not careful, end up as a collection of networks. Networks, if not careful, become hierarchies. When a network becomes a hierarchy, it becomes fossilized, and it’s dead.”
Hierarchies have failed societies since time immemorial. It may be that we are currently undergoing the last gasp of hierarchy in the expression of the nation-state, an experiment that started in the last few centuries.
Nation-states are sovereign states whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language or common descent and in which the cultural borders of a nation match the borders of the state.
France after the French Revolution (1787–99) is often cited as the first nation-state, though some scholars consider the establishment of the English Commonwealth in 1649 as the earliest instance of nation-state creation. Prior to nation-states, geographical areas were governed by dynastic monarchies, theocratic states, and colonial empires.
It may be that the tech bros’ proposed network states, which would further blend online and offline domains, are, indeed, the future, even if Kamala Harris wins the United States presidency and preserves the societal structuring of hierarchy for the time being. During a time of great uncertainty and transition such as now, this is the left’s reptilian brain—a craving for consistency and leadership that hierarchy suggests and imparts.
The right is largely regressive, save the tech influence, in a narcissistic cult with Trump, but the status quo left is hovering in a place of stasis in the face of great technological headwinds.
President Joe Biden’s dead-weight, zero presence Vice President Kamala Harris has metamorphosed overnight with Joe Biden passing the torch into a Michelle Obama meets Oprah figure. Her metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly is only in stark relief to the prior bleak political scene of a former near comatose presidential candidate for the Democrats in Biden meets a virulent fascist dictator in Trump. She’s bringing the joy, a refreshing change of pace to be sure, but the exuberance that animates her campaign can be overdone. Any country that turns its president into a demigod is setting itself up for political narcissistic abuse by outsourcing its agency to a savior figure.
Prof. Sam Vaknin recognizes the unprecedented role of technology in influencing networks to defeat hierarchies.
The evolution of client-server networks, which debuted in the 1980s, to Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network architecture, which got traction in the 1990s, is analogous to the modern-day transition from hierarchy to networks of all stripes. A defining trait of P2P networks is that all nodes are connected and can share resources and services with other nodes on the network. Each node operates independently, and an algorithm is used to balance the load.
Network States
Tech elites are offering an alternative way to structure society. Instead of aiming for an American melting pot, which is contingent on lowering narcissistic defenses—a high bar in today’s climate—author Balaji Srinivasan suggests an alternative model in his book The Network State: How to Start a New Country, published in 2022.
Balaji Srinivasan argues that our societies are evolving from concentrating power in God to the state to the network. He writes that Nietzsche declared, “God is dead” in the late 19th century, the 20th century was dominated by faith in the state, and we are entering the domain of the network in the 21st century. He calls this transition “God, State, Network.”
In his book, Srinivasan boldly advocates that people physically move to geographic areas, i.e., network states that hold their values, so that they don’t have the
“burden of having to vote every four years.”
The nascent network states would be initially formed online with like-minded people and then grow to inhabit the physical world; the idea is to go from online to aligned (pronounced ah-lined).
A Critique of Network States
A knee-jerk critique of the concept of a network state would be to slam the concept as idyllic kumbaya tech-utopian gibberish. This critique could continue by asking, at what point would members be sufficiently harmoniously aligned with their neighbors? In an age of narcissism (and borderline personality disorder), where would the endpoint of self-satisfaction be? Would it be to live in a colony of clones, as narcissistic thinking does not brook differences?
Public sentiment used to hold that our collective diversity, pluralism, and even differences were an asset that paradoxically united us along the lines of an aphorism that used to be truer before the advent of sweeping narcissism, the idea that “opposites attract” like magnetic polarities.
The concept of America’s melting pot is now being reconceived with the idea that everyone should live in a network state monoculture, ironically, suggestive of identity politics’ woke monoliths. Without vital biological diversity, including diversity of thought, monocultures would dangerously presage extinction. Diversity bolsters immunity for networks; otherwise, networks are vulnerable to external shocks.
The silo effect of stultifying cult-like network states would make modern political polarization look like child’s play. Network states could present a veritable smorgasbord of overwhelming and, therefore, dysregulating choices.
Theoretically, each person would choose what network to join, analogous to determining which Subtacks to follow. The cult-like quality of network states and a more general question of free will suggest otherwise. Almost all networks have cult-like elements, whereas hierarchies don’t. Picking up and leaving a network state may be easier said than done, no different than in the current physical world.
With network states, these tech elites are, in effect, advocating for non-adulting, never growing up, and puer aeternus. Adulting is the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks.
Adulting would involve tolerating and accepting differences. Instead, this network state schema encourages the populace to become atomized David Goodhart’s “anywhere” persons rather than “somewhere” persons, which for the vast majority, i.e., the masses, would never work. These techno-narcissists have a pie-in-the-sky notion that you can, with a snap of your fingers, easily move everyone around the globe to values-aligned network states that they probably delusionally believe that AI will somehow engineer the transport. From the perspective of a cult leader, it would be so much easier to control lost lambs without the moorings of family, friends, and culture (somewhere) in a network state cult (anywhere).
While nation-states may offer dubious cartography with their fuzzily and somewhat arbitrarily drawn borders corralling majority social groups into one geographic area—think German-speaking Italians or Russian-speaking Ukrainians—it’s unconvincing that network states hold the answers to vast problems such as climate change-induced mass migrations and refugee crises, a phenomenon that pushes the concept of the nation-state to the breaking point. We only have to look to Russia invading Ukraine to understand that the very processes of nation-state formation increase the likelihood of wars.
The (Network) State of Play
Trump has built up over nine years a normalized underdog counterculture movement eschewing the elites. This movement or network functions like bees in a beehive— ready to sting.
Ironically, Trump is beginning to be seen as “establishment” or worse by his heretofore base by the likes of conspiratorial-minded conservative political commentator Candice Owens in her August 16th interview with misogynist influencer Andrew Tate. Owens believes that Trump has now been compromised by the so-called “deep state.” Tate agreed, saying, “There seems to be some kind of deal somewhere…I don’t know exactly what the deal is. I’m not even gonna say that I blame the guy for taking it. But some kind of agreement’s been made.”
Similarly, conservative personality Megyn Kelly is beginning to turn on Trump. She stated that in his recent interview on X with Elon Musk, Trump was rambling, she was getting bored and losing interest. She also shared that Trump doesn’t like it when she calls out his senior moments.
To carry on with the same paradigm of a constitutional Democratic Republic in the United States is now a neo-conservative stance in the face of Trump’s techno-Christo-fascistic headwinds. As I’ve written before, the Democrats are now the conservatives, and Trump is woke.
As narcissism ascends in societies, democracies are on the decline. Democracies are reliant on good-faith mutuality, forbearance, and norms —all in short supply in narcissistic and anomic times such as these.
It may just be that we have grown to be too technologically empowered and god-like as a people to respond favorably to top-down mandates and decrees from on high as is proposed in hierarchical models. Even “freedom”-wielding democracies are not scratching the itch for the desired autonomy that complements our atomized and solipsistic (self-referential) narcissistic age.
So we are faced with a network insurgency against our priors—hierarchy and democracy. As it is, Libertarians and many on the right no longer want to drive toward the vote-driven consensus or majority rule that democracy hinges on; they want it their way all the time. And they seem to be asking, don’t you?
North Macedonia (Brussels Morning Newspaper), In October 2023, the Journal of European Public Policy, published an article titled “Euroscepticism as a syndrome of stagnation? Regional inequality and trust in the EU”, authored by Sofia Vasilopoulou and Lisa Talving.
They found that “a non-linear association exists whereby poor and rich European regions tend to trust the EU more compared to middle-income regions, and that within-region over-time growth is associated with higher levels of EU trust. We demonstrate that the association between growth and EU trust is more pronounced among poor and middle-income regions compared to rich regions.” In short: trust in the EU and its institutions is a direct derivative of the economic conditions of specific regions in it.
Economics acquired its dismal reputation by pretending to be an exact science rather than a branch of mass psychology. In truth, it is a narrative struggling to describe the aggregate behavior of humans. It seeks to cloak its uncertainties and shifting fashions with mathematical formulae and elaborate econometric computerized models.
So much is certain, though – that people operate within markets, free or regulated, patchy or organized. They attach numerical (and emotional) values to their inputs (work, capital) and their possessions (assets, natural endowments). They communicate these values to each other by sending out signals known as prices.
Yet, this entire edifice – the market and its price mechanism – critically depends on trust. If people do not trust each other, or the economic “envelope” within which they interact (“preemptive mistrust”), economic activity gradually grinds to a halt. There is a strong correlation between the general level of trust and the extent and intensity of economic activity. Francis Fukuyama, the political scientist, distinguishes between high-trust and prosperous societies and low-trust and, therefore, impoverished collectives. Trust underlies economic success, he argued in a 1995 tome.
Trust is not a monolithic quantity. There are a few categories of economic trust. Some forms of trust are akin to a public good and are closely related to governmental action or inaction, the reputation of the state and its institutions, and its pronounced agenda. Other types of trust are the outcomes of kinship, ethnic origin, personal standing and goodwill, corporate brands, and other data generated by individuals, households, and firms. Such information creates two types of output: reinforced trust (where behavior matches expectations) and “inductive distrust” (where behavior frustrates expectations).
I. Trust in the playing field
To transact, people have to maintain faith in a relevant economic horizon and in the immutability of the economic playing field or “envelope”. Put less obscurely, a few hidden assumptions underlie the continued economic activity of market players.
They assume, for instance, that the market will continue to exist for the foreseeable future in its current form. That it will remain inert – unhindered by externalities like government intervention, geopolitical upheavals, crises, abrupt changes in accounting policies and tax laws, hyperinflation, institutional and structural reform, and other market-deflecting events and processes.
They further assume that their price signals will not be distorted or thwarted constantly, thus skewing the efficient and rational allocation of risks and rewards. Insider trading, stock manipulation, monopolies, cartels, informal economic activities (“black market”), and hoarding all tend to consistently but unpredictably distort price signals and, thus, deter market participation.
Market players take for granted the existence and continuous operation of institutions: financial intermediaries, law enforcement agencies, courts, the civil service, educational institutions, and so on. It is important to note that market players prefer continuity and certainty to evolution, however gradual and ultimately beneficial. A venal bureaucrat is a known quantity and can be tackled effectively. A period of transition to good and equitable governance can be more stifling than any level of corruption and malfeasance. This is why economic activity drops sharply whenever institutions are reformed.
II. Trust in other players
Market players assume that other players are (generally) rational, that they have intentions, that they intend to maximize their benefits and that they are likely to act on their intentions in a legal (or rule-based), rational manner.
III. Trust in market liquidity
Market players assume that other players possess or have access to the liquid means they need to act on their intentions and obligations. They know, from personal experience, that idle capital tends to dwindle and that the only way to, perhaps, maintain or increase it is to transact with others, directly or through intermediaries, such as banks.
IV. Trust in others’ knowledge and ability
Market players assume that other players possess or have access to the intellectual property, technology, and knowledge they need to realize their intentions and obligations. This implicitly presupposes that all other market players are physically, mentally, legally, and financially able and willing to act their parts as stipulated, for instance, in contracts they sign.
The emotional dimensions of contracting are often neglected in economics. Players assume that their counterparts maintain a realistic and stable sense of self-worth based on intimate knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses. Market participants are presumed to harbor realistic expectations, commensurate with their skills and accomplishments. Allowance is made for exaggeration, disinformation, and even outright deception – but these are supposed to be marginal phenomena.
When trust breaks down – often the result of an external or internal systemic shock – people react expectedly. The number of voluntary interactions and transactions decreases sharply. With a collapsed investment horizon, individuals and firms become corrupt to shortcut their way into economic benefits, not knowing how long will the system survive. Criminal activity increases.
People compensate with fantasies and grandiose delusions for their growing sense of uncertainty, helplessness, and fears. This is a self-reinforcing mechanism, a vicious cycle that results in under-confidence and fluctuating self-esteem. They develop psychological defense mechanisms.
Cognitive dissonance (“I really choose to be poor rather than heartless”), pathological envy (seeks to deprive others and thus gain emotional reward), rigidity (“I am like that, my family or ethnic group has been like that for generations, there is nothing I can do”), passive-aggressive behavior (obstructing the workflow, absenteeism, stealing from the employer, adhering strictly to arcane regulations) – are all reactions to a breakdown in one or more of the four aforementioned types of trust. Furthermore, people in a trust crisis are unable to postpone gratification. They often become frustrated, aggressive, and deceitful if denied. They resort to reckless behavior and stopgap economic activities.
In economic environments with compromised and impaired trust, loyalty decreases, and mobility increases. People switch jobs, renege on obligations, fail to repay debts and relocate often. Concepts like exclusivity, the sanctity of contracts, workplace loyalty, or a career path – all get eroded. As a result, little is invested in the future, in the acquisition of skills, or in long-term savings. Short-termism and bottom-line mentality rule.
The outcomes of a crisis of trust are, usually, catastrophic:
Economic activity is much reduced, human capital is corroded and wasted, brain drain increases, illegal and extra-legal activities rise, society is polarized between haves and haves-not, and interethnic and inter-racial tensions increase. To rebuild trust in such circumstances is a daunting task. The loss of trust is contagious and, finally, it infects every institution and profession in the land. It is the stuff revolutions are made of.
V. Trust and Distrust Indices
I suggest a simple index of economic trust with the following variables, all of which are scored on a scale of 1 to 10:
T (i) = P+L+C+I+S+M+V+F+R+W
The index can thus range from 0 to 100, with 100 signifying total, absolute, unreserved, all-pervasive, and enduring economic trust, and 0 represents the complete absence of any form of trust between and among economic agents and actors.
1 divided by the index (1/T(i)) would be the index of economic mistrust.
Population size (P): the bigger the population, the easier it is to cheat and deceive because information is disseminated more slowly and peer pressure is limited;
Law enforcement (L): efficient law enforcement and a functional judiciary enhance trust;
Corruption (C), surprisingly, has a neutral effect: on the one hand, it encourages preemptive mistrust by upsetting the level playing field; on the other hand, corruption, and venality increase certainty in otherwise uncertain economic environments by providing a tried-and-true “price list” for services;
Connectivity (I): the more connected individuals are and the faster the dissemination of accurate, transparent information, the higher the level of trust. Technologies such as the Internet serve to enhance economic trust;
Stability and Predictability (S) are the cornerstones of economic trust: government intervention, geopolitical upheavals, crises, abrupt changes in accounting policies and tax laws, hyperinflation, institutional and structural reform, and other market-deflecting events and processes all tend to reduce the average level of trust;
Available and reliable price signals (M), not distorted by insider trading, stock manipulation, hoarding, informal economic activities (“black market”), monopolies, and cartels;
Reliable store of value (V): currency or goods and services can as means of exchange and generate trust only when they represent real long-term value;
Functioning institutions (F) are crucial to the establishment and maintenance of trust: financial intermediaries, law enforcement agencies, courts, the civil service, educational institutions, and so on;
Cultural-social rationality (R): in all cultures and societies there are times when the optimization of profits and benefits, the ethics of contracting, and otherwise rational economic behavior are subordinated to often self-defeating and self-destructive irrational beliefs, prejudices, stereotypes, and biases, spurred on by capricious and arbitrary leaders, ethos, and more. Such surrealism is not conducive to economic trust; Wherewithal (W): when all the economic actors and agents possess the liquidity and knowledge necessary to complete their transactions and honor their obligations, this creates and sustains an atmosphere of trust.
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