Kerby Anderson

The authors of their book, The Sovereign Individual, explain that we are entering into the fourth stage of human society. First, there were the hunting and gathering societies. Then came the agricultural societies. More recently we had the industrial societies. Now, we live within informational societies.

Although the book was written in the 1990s, there are sections of the book that are quoted even now in the second decade of the 21^st century. The authors predicted we would use our phones for news, information, and financial transactions. They predicted more people would be learning online. More and more people would be working remotely. And they predicted the rise of “cybercash” and privatized money.

But let me also add that they were also like a typical baseball player and had both hits and misses. But we should appreciate the predictions that were on target. The accuracy of their predictions resulted in part because of the pandemic and lockdowns. The last two years accelerated the trends of remote working and online education. A federal government that printed so much money, increased consumer interest in cryptocurrencies and digital cash.

The authors say we can learn lessons from the past as we see what happened when the agricultural revolution changed society. We can see parallels between the decline of the Church and what they predict will be the decline of the nation-state. Mass production of books ended the Church's monopoly on Scripture and information. They predict that the information revolution will destroy the power of the nation-state, and allow people to change locations if laws, taxes, or regulations are unfavorable.

Although this book was written two decades ago, it predicted many of the changes we are seeing in our world today during this fourth stage of society.