Isolationism may sound a bit out of place in today's world, a throwback to an age when travel between distant lands was slow and prohibitively expensive, and communication was limited and unreliable. But in fact, the roots of isolationism are strong even now, and bare themselves not only at the state level, but in individual regions of states as well.
Isolationism, and its cousins irredentism (1) and separatism, are quite common, even in the industrialized world. In the advanced nations, isolationist sentiments usually take the forms of protectionism (the desire to keep foreigners out of the domestic market) and economic nationalism. While a strong and popular force, the position of protectionism is a generally discredited one. The experience of the industrialized world after the last major incidence of protectionism (which was triggered by the outrageous Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930, by which the U.S. imposed the highest tariffs on imported goods in its history) is still a bitterly remembered one; most economists agree that it was this extreme protectionism, and the trade wars that followed, that brought on the Great Depression. But irredentism and separatism, in contrast, have an irresistible quality to them, an association with some of the finest impulses in mankind, such as the desire to be independent and to resist oppression.
Irredentism and separatism are found in many industrialized states, such as Canada (the province of Quebec), Spain (the Basque region) and Great Britain (Northern Ireland), and in many other parts of the world (such as Sri Lanka). They are fueled by a variety of causes, such as linguistic differences (as in the case of the French-speaking Quebecois and English-speaking Canada), religious differences, ethnic differences, historical and political differences. The desire of many groups to be separate from others is an old one, and the modern system of large states with strong central governments is a relatively recent innovation. Given these impulses, there is reason to believe that the large state may not survive the advent of molecular nanotechnology, which is sometimes characterized as a state-killing technology. MNT seems likely, however, to prove to be the opposite kind of technology, one that will kill large states but also help give birth to many small states; in this way it will be a state-creating technology.
Consider the cost that would be associated with a small group's choosing to isolate itself from the rest of society. Were the members of this hypothetical group part of an advanced economy, then daily life would immediately become a matter of hardship, relative to the life they were giving up. This would be due to the fact that by separating, they would be losing the benefits of participating in a large economy; i.e., they would lose the benefits of the division of labor. This cost makes the prospect of small group independence either a pipe-dream or too harsh for most to contemplate (2). But if MNT makes it possible for people to create all they need to survive, and even prosper, in extremely small groups, then to some it may become an attractive alternative to a continued existence in a larger, possibly hostile society.
The discomforts and even dangers of being a minority are well understood by European Jews, millions of whom died in the Holocaust. At the end of the war, Jews established their own state in the Middle East, Israel. This was a rare occurrence, but that should not lead us to believe that the desire for such an occurrence is equally rare. As was pointed out above, irredentism and separatism are strong, and the separatist impulse may be even more common than separatist movements, considering the high costs associated not only with being an independent small group, but also with the process of establishing a separate state, which is often long and bloody.
MNT may take the bite out of independence by removing the need to capture economies of scale in order to prosper. By making the cost of capital (in the forms of factories and production equipment) negligible, "one-offs" and limited production runs of goods may have the almost the same cost as their mass-produced counterparts. This would eliminate the need for participation in a larger market in order to capture the benefits of economies of scale; thus, trade, and with it the interdependence that accompanies trade, would shrink by an enormous degree. This opens up the possibility of small, autarkic states, ones that can form on a basis other than economic need, so that religious, ethnic, linguistic and any number of other reasons for association can take precedence. What may result is the formation of small, independent, autarkic communities for specific groups of people; these designer communities may be the state of tomorrow.
The concept of designer communities should not be as surprising as it might sound at first; after all, there is ample precedence for it, found in the on-line world of bulletin boards, chat rooms and MUDs. For anyone unfamiliar with these terms, a brief, yet comprehensive, way of explaining them is hard to produce; they are best experienced first hand. Nonetheless, the core concepts of the communities formed via the Internet and other electronic means of communication and their relevance for designer communities can be captured in this phrase: they are virtually costless communities. In this key respect, they resemble the state of tomorrow.
Economic demands often force individuals to make unpleasant decisions. One of those is engaging in work they do not enjoy. Another is working somewhere they would rather not be. It is not uncommon in many countries, particularly mobile ones such as the U.S., for workers to move far away from their hometowns in pursuit of work, and it is also not uncommon for them to move quite frequently. In Japan, workers are often separated from their immediate families; many men are forced to leave their wives and children behind for years at a time due to being assigned to a distant post. These high costs are tolerated because they are (presumably) outweighed by the benefits. There is no doubt that many or most of these workers would like to live differently, but there is an economic imperative that drives them to make sacrifices. Changing their lives to more closely suit their desires would entail high opportunity costs, which are the costs associated with choosing one option over others. (For example, choosing to eat a pasta salad precludes eating whatever else is available; the opportunity cost is what is not chosen.) The opportunity cost of working near one's family may be not getting a better paying job, or even not finding work in one's chosen field. Not accepting a transfer overseas may entail not being promoted at a later date.
Similarly, many potential communities that "exist" across the world may become reality due to the way an advanced molecular manufacturing capability could lower the costs of building them. Consider the products of such a technology; they would be cheap, they could be as advanced as any available design on the planet, and they could be made in small, easily affordable "factories," if the technology lives up to today's engineering estimates (3). If so, there should be fewer incentives to make large sacrifices such as those illustrated above. The economic imperatives for such sacrifices (such as greater wealth somewhere else) will become weaker as equivalent alternatives (such as greater wealth at home) become available, and thus the opportunity costs of living in the community one wants, as opposed to the community where one can make a living, become smaller. A preview of this situation is therefore afforded by the virtual communities we find sprouting on computer screens across the globe, as these communities have very low opportunity costs (which consist primarily of lost time).
The future these virtual communities point to is one of very narrowly defined communities. When one thinks of a traditional community, what may come to mind is an image of a small town, one where everyone knows each other, but not everyone gets along. Those that do not "fit in" or who do not belong are tolerated because there is often no other choice; moving is sometimes prohibitively expensive, either in direct costs or in opportunity costs. Likewise, individuals may choose to stay in communities they are not comfortable with, simply because that is where the jobs are. That certainly seems to be part of the reason for the rapid urbanization taking place in the developing world, where cities are popular destinations, despite being dangerous, overcrowded and disease-ridden. But in virtual communities, new homes, new friends and sometimes new cultures are often just a mouse-click away. These communities are virtually costless in the sense that the costs involved with choosing one over the others are extremely low, and the result of their having this characteristic is that communities tend to be custom tailored to specific groups, tailored in a way that would be impossible in the physical world. It is possible to associate only with fans of certain authors, or with stamp collectors, certain ethnic and linguistic groups, or people with particular philosophical or political beliefs. The options are almost endless, and so they may be when the material world becomes as easily and cheaply manipulated as the bits in a computer. When we can treat atoms as bits, our material world may come to resemble the virtual one in some crucial ways, including this one.
Even without the incentive of custom-built societies tailored to the needs of certain groups, there is ample reason to believe that at least some of our present societies will experience a natural disintegration into smaller units. Consider that one of the advantages of being a citizen of a large state today is that they are relatively safe, in the sense that they are harder to destroy than small states. If MNT makes all states equally deadly to attack, then this advantage evaporates. So will others, such as the advantage enjoyed by manufacturers in having a large domestic market in which to do business, since economies of scale become achievable in small-scale and even "one-off" production. The disadvantages of large states will become more obvious in contrast to the diminished advantages.
Large democracies are quite difficult to manage. They are inefficient in the conduct of their internal state business, and are inefficient in their conduct of external affairs. The decision-making process can be painfully slow, and will possibly be dangerously slow in a future of widespread MNT. All else being equal, it is reasonable to assume that small democracies will perform relatively better in the process of converting potential power to realized power, since they generally have fewer layers of bureaucracy involved in decision-making and in the implementation of decisions. (This is true only relative to large democracies; autocracies, regardless of their size, can have very few layers of government involved in decision-making and implementation.)
The above implies that large democracies may become an endangered species. There certainly seems to be little cause to expect them to retain much popularity in the face of disappearing advantages. Whether they will dissolve or instead pass through some intermediate stages on the way to decentralization and dispersal of state power remains to be seen, but it is unlikely that they will survive in their present form. The fate of autocracies, however, is less clear. If a given autocracy should adopt MNT early on, there is a possibility that it may employ the technology to achieve a level of control over its internal society that will prevent the use of the technology for anything other than government purposes. On the other hand, any delay may give access to the technology to small groups that may then use it to challenge government oppression, and unlike many past challenges (such as the Chinese student democracy movement in 1989), these movements may be on more even footing with government forces, thanks to their possession of nanotechnological tools.
Note that as mentioned earlier, it may be the case that these designer communities, many of which will be based on narrow interests, may make nationalism an even stronger force than it already is. Compared to the nationalism of today, the nationalism of tomorrow may be much more fervent, since it can be more difficult to have strong feelings for a large state. When state populations number in the thousands or even hundreds, extreme devotion should be much more common, for the same reasons that most people feel more devotion to their families than to larger groups. This new, more intense form of nationalism may only make the prospect of a world state even more remote than it already is, by making a world community harder to forge.
This would be in keeping with the trend of modern nationalism, which is one of declining influence on the side of supranational forces (such as religions and the like) and increasing influence on the side of nationalism. Designer communities, built expressly to meet the needs of their citizens, will be more deserving of their loyalty than are traditional states, and therefore will likely contribute to the continuing rise of nationalism at the expense of more universal forces. (4)
The potential of molecular manufacturing technology to free states from economic interdependence is a crucial element in the possibility of perpetual peace among them. But while the independence of states is a necessary condition for peace, it is not a sufficient one. Due to geographic reasons, states will still be forced into contact. The earth is a globe, and there is a limit to how far apart states can be from each other; the farthest two terrestrial points can be is only 12,756 kilometers. If states remain earth-bound, they will continue to have a necessary relationship with each other, one based on proximity. Presently, geographic isolation is not an option, but in the same way that MNT may make the economic isolation of states possible, so may it may geographic isolation possible.
As addressed in more detail by other authors, molecular nanotechnology is likely to open up the frontier of space settlement by making it far cheaper and more practical than it is today. The settlement of space will be attractive for many reasons, to be sure, such as the thrill of pioneering, the pressures of population growth, and the lure of unexploited resources in the asteroid belt and on other planets. Based on the intolerable situation states will find themselves in due to the development of MNT (that is, being brought closer to the state of nature without the option of forming a world state), there will be an added incentive to settle space: the need of states to get away from one another.
It may not be intuitive to think of simple proximity as a cause of conflict, but in the state of nature, anyone who is not part of one's state is a threat by virtue of his proximity alone. The philosopher Immanuel Kant has this to say on the subject, which may serve to clarify:
"It is often assumed that one is not permitted to proceed with hostility against anyone unless he has already hurt him, and this is indeed very true if both live in a civic state under law, for by entering into this state one man proffers the necessary security to another through the superior authority which has power over both. But man (or the nation) in a mere state of nature deprives me of this security and hurts me by this very state, simply by being near me, even though not actively (facto). He hurts me by the lawlessness of his state (statu iniusto) by which I am constantly threatened..." (5).
Kant is saying that the very fact of being close together is destabilizing if individuals or nations are in a state of nature, as there is no guarantee that one will not attempt to hurt the others. There are, Kant goes on to say, only two paths to peace in the face of a proximate, independent state: "...I can compel him either to enter into a communal state under law with me or to leave my vicinity." But as we saw above, a world state (a "communal state under law") is not yet an option. The only other choice, then, is to separate from each other, not just economically and politically, but also spatially. Kant gives us the postulate "(A)ll men who can mutually affect each other should belong under a joint civic constitution," and as states cannot join under a constitution in the short-term, they must make themselves unable to affect each other (or at least do what they can to approximate such a situation), as that is the only other path to peace. It is in their interest to spread out and have as little state-level contact as possible.
The settlement of space will allow states to do just that. Other planets and their moons will present the same problem that the earth does (i.e., being a globe, the earth forces a constant proximity of each state to the others), but planetary surfaces are not the only options for off-world settlements. Another option is the creation of settlements that are self-contained worlds, existing independently of a planetary surface. These settlements have been explored in other works in greater detail than can be devoted to them here, but given the potential power of molecular manufacturing, it is safe to assume that if it lives up to its advance billing, it will make such settlements a real and affordable possibility.
Settlements that do not depend on a planetary surface, but rather may be located in almost any position around the sun, will make space settlement a solution to the problem of geographic proximity by removing the constraints of global geometry. On a globe, any move away from one point moves one closer to that point in the opposite direction; spreading out in space, on the other hand, will mean separation in an absolute sense, rather than only relative to one direction. Man will be able to expand like points on the surface of an expanding balloon, and thus can "leave [each other's] vicinity," as Kant advised.
(1) "Irredentism is a movement by members of an ethnic group in one state to retrieve ethnically kindred people and their territory across borders." (Irredentism and International Politics, Chazan, Naomi, ed., Lynne Reinner Publishers, Inc., 1991, p.10) The word comes from the Italian term Italia irredenta (unredeemed Italy), which refers to Italian areas of Austria which Italy sought to reclaim during the First World War.
(2) There are, of course, some groups for whom the difficulty involve in isolation from the society around them is viewed as an acceptable, or even desirable, price to pay; the Amish (a religious sect in the Northeast of the U.S.) serve as an example of this phenomenon.
(4) "The supranational forces, such as universal religions, humanitarianism, cosmopolitanism, and all the other personal ties, institutions, and organizations that bind individuals together across national boundaries, are infinitely weaker today than the forces that unite people within a particular national boundary and separate them from the rest of humanity. This weakening of supranational forces is but the negative by-product of ... nationalism." Morgenthau, p. 350.
(5) Eternal Peace, Kant, Immanuel, The Philosophy of Kant, Friedrich, Carl J., ed., Random House, 1949, p. 436.