Balaji Srinivasan's vision of Network States has influenced Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and the "New Right" movement. However, he f

Build network societies, not network states

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2024-11-24 22:00:04

Balaji Srinivasan's vision of Network States has influenced Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and the "New Right" movement. However, he fails to grasp that networks are more a worldview than a technology—a view that runs contrary to the simplistic logic of exit he finds invigorating.

Balaji Srinivasan aspires to be the John Locke of the Digital Age. His book, The Network State (TNS), puts forth a new social contract enabled by “Web3 technology,” centered on blockchains. In a sentence, he defines the network state (NS) as a startup country—“a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.”

The book is slapdash but sincere. It is also a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and endorsed by a bevy of Silicon Valley titans. Readers tempted to ignore it as a fringe polemic do so at their peril: Srinivasan has crystalized a strand of post-libertarian thinking that is shaping much of the technology industry and has influenced Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. Indeed, to the extent Srinivasan is a prophet of “the New Right,” a loose group of thinkers whose ideas are driving Project 2025, it behooves anyone interested in the future of American politics to take note of his ideas.