I don't fully agree with this analysis. I think cause and consequence are inverted here, although you do have a point. I don't think that government *was needed* ; rather that it was *unavoidably created*. To me, the "warlords" ARE the governments, and they arise BECAUSE there is wealth to steal ; not the other way around. It is not because one created governments, that wealth occured ; it is because there was wealth, that warlords became governments.
Incorrect.
Warlords (feudalism) is what you get when there is a power vacuum and thus nothing can be organized on any sufficient economies-of-scale. It is what the Western Roman Empire collapsed back to for a Dark Age, because we didn't have the Roman military guarding the road construction and commerce.
In my view, a state is nothing else but a warlord, one that got so strong over a territory, that competition was exterminated, and that the only warlords remaining, were the neighbours.
I think that what states do, is nothing else but "upscale" feudalism. Instead of having local fights, you get more global wars, and instead of having a fight every year, you get a serious war every few decades. Now, this is maybe what you are referring at, that as these "windows of opportunity" get larger, during these periods of prosperity, in between periods of slavery, war and destruction, there's enough room to progress and "set information aside" for the next cycle, which is less the case if these cycles happen on smaller scales, with less violence, but also with less large windows of prosperity.
I think the fundamental error is to think that the problem of violence can be solved by having such a big violence monopolist that everybody has to surrender to it. This only slows down, but amplifies, the cycles of violence and slavery. True, as the cycles are slowed down, the windows of opportunity grow larger (but the destructions that follow are also more severe, maybe to the point of no return). That said, the *natural tendency* for war lords is, by economies of scale, to obtain automatically a violence monopolist. So the appearance of states is a natural consequence. But that doesn't mean that one has to approve it.
Not only that, but it enabled protection for large scale infrastructure and commerce.
This isn't entirely true. Big progress is historically made when there were no empires. Classical culture developed by the ancient Greeks came about when Greece was not part of the Roman empire. Development essentially halted under the Roman empire. Yes, they built roads and legal systems and so on. But scientific development essentially came to a grinding halt. Arab culture became most productive during the Caliphate (when Europe was part of a few Christian empires and made us go through the Middle ages), which was very distributed, and not very centrally organized.
It is true that the discovery of modern science started inside Western empires, but in fact, mostly *against* the dominant rule of the empires, which was the God-given King and aristocracy. Galileo, who started the western scientific revolution, got into deep trouble with that.
Now, I admit that most of modern technological and scientific development happened under the gouvernance of relatively young western states, who did, indeed, provide means and protection for these developments to occur. But these same governments are now suffocating us. These governments were still OK when they were just put in place after the West cut off the head of their king, fought for their freedom of another king and installed "democratic" governments. These initially light-weight structures were indeed beneficial at first sight and opened a window of opportunity.
But these same structures grew inevitably to the level of true power structures. When you look at the US constitution, the Founding fathers built about every thinkable protection into it against such structures, and nevertheless, it happened. The US government evolved from a system that was designed NOT to become a powerhouse of slavery and violence, into what it is now: one of the worst violence monopolists on earth. And every precaution has been taken to avoid that. Which proves that even with the best of intentions, power concentration leads to horror stories.
Competing Dark Age warlords means interstate commerce dies.
Exactly the same situation in Classic ages, and during the Caliphate, made commerce prosper.
I do not agree that the government permitted less violence: what was local small scale violence, was replaced by inter-governmental wars on large scale.
Agreed, but it did enable massive progress for mankind. You can't deny the Agricultural, Industrial, and now Computer revolutions of which the first two at least could not have happened without the nation-state as I explained above.
I think you have this impression because we just had a few decades of prosperity after a half century of devastating war (the first and second world wars were just one war with a pause). After a period of war, there is always some "relief" (or not, when you look at the soviet union).
However, there is a way to empower individuals with weapons of mass destruction. As such, the economies of scale on the level of warlords/states will lose its significance.
That is a non-sequitor. Chaos of physical security on the large scale would only send us back into a Dark Age with warlords.
Rather if human activity becomes sufficiently decentralized, then we no longer are threatened by physical attack. For example, it is impossible to attack the heartland of the USA with an army because there is a citizen's gun under every blade of grass. (the heartland can be attacked by isolating it from commerce and trade though, because we aren't 100% in the decentralized Knowledge Age yet)
I don't think that this is related. Agriculture is decentralized. But nevertheless, states occured. I think they didn't occur because people needed protection, but rather because agriculture permitted so much production that the accumulation of wealth and taxation became possible. When you have a population of nomads that can only just survive, you cannot accumulate wealth by taxing them. You only kill them, and there's too little to take. When you have peasants, you can accumulate wealth (food) by taxing them, you can finance armies, and you can become a state.
But the peasants didn't need a state. Of course, you told them that they needed you, but they didn't. A passing war lord cannot come and "steal" from every peasant. That's not lucrative. But taxing local peasants against "protection", is what made Kings rich.
It is the origin of states. Production, and theft through taxes.
In the decentralized Knowledge Age, the important people won't live in any concentrated area.
I think we're dreaming of a similar utopia. But in my opinion, that utopia could have been realized at any stage of development, if people didn't fall for the lie that they needed state protection, and we don't have to wait for a specific technological advancement in order to realize that. I also think that as long as this erroneous belief lives on, that utopia will remain a dream and states will continue to convince people that they "need their protection". So there's no reason to wait.
Sorry we can't move (within the next decade or two) to Monero's absolute anonymity. Sorry. We need a more pragmatic approach for Stage #5 of the global economic collapse because the State will still be strong in Asia and destructive in the West. I propose anonymity that is compatible with taxation, because Asia will have strong States not total collapse.
I don't see the use of anonymity if you allow for taxation. And in fact, you can never prove that you declared everything. You can prove that everything related to these addresses you own, is declared. But you can never prove that you DON'T own the keys to other addresses. What if you owned them, and lost them ? How can you prove you have forgotten something ?