Now featuring a new preface by Peter Thiel Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the bestseller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization. Few observers of the late twentieth century have their fingers so presciently on the pulse of the global political and economic realignment ushering in the new millennium as do James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. Their bold prediction of disaster on Wall Street in Blood in the Streets was borne out by Black Tuesday. In their ensuing bestseller, The Great Reckoning, published just weeks before the coup attempt against Gorbachev, they analyzed the pending collapse of the Soviet Union and foretold the civil war in Yugoslavia and other events that have proved to be among the most searing developments of the past few years. In The Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg explore the greatest economic and political transition in centuries—the shift from an industrial to an information-based society. This transition, which they have termed "the fourth stage of human society," will liberate individuals as never before, irrevocably altering the power of government. This outstanding book will replace false hopes and fictions with new understanding and clarified values.

"With Christopher Allen, Fabian Vogelsteller, and 52 other leading identity experts"--Cover.

Language and logic are inextricably commingled in our everyday speech. What we say, particularly in the form of statements, tends not only to mirror our world, but mold it into our own image. This book looks at how much of our verbal communication can be considered “valid” from the point of view of the rules of logic. Are we saying what we mean to say? Is what we hear from the media, our peers, our leaders, and those who determine the narrative “story” of our lives meaningful, rational, and logical? Even more important than the answers to these questions is the answer to whether we are the governors and rulers of our own lives. Have we abdicated this sovereign rule to forces that may not have our best interests and wellbeing in mind? Using works of Continental and analytic philosophy ancient and modern, psychology, linguistics, religion, and literature, this book supports the thesis that we have surrendered the only thing we could ever possibly own – ourselves – for unprecedented access to consumer goods, credit, and the hope for medical immortality. Further, the argument is made that the prevailing discourse of global modern culture consists of statements which are invalid because their inner semantic structure is inherently contradictory. The argument is aimed at those who want to learn more about what makes our everyday discourse and thinking rational or irrational. At the same time, it indicts the individual of the modern industrialized state for the crime of the voluntary abdication of his sovereignty and for forcing others who have little control over their lives to do the same. This book is a call for introspection in the hope that the reader will see something of the situation described reflected not only in himself, but in the society he inhabits.

Drawing on Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler and Stanley Cavell, this book addresses contemporary theoretical and political debates in a broader comparative perspective and rearticulates the relationship between ethics and politics by highlighting those who are currently excluded from our notions of political community.

Sovereignty in the Exercise of the Right to Self-Determination detangles the relationship between a number of principles of international law and the exercise of sovereign power. Jane Hofbauer’s assessment is conducted through an analysis of the different tiers of self-determination, ranging from the right to exercise external self-determination, the right to exercise forms of autonomy as a form of de facto independence, and the right to a type of ‘spatial’ independence, exemplified through the principles of permanent sovereignty over natural resources (PSNR), and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). The book not only highlights the (intentional) uncertainties within each of these principles, but identifies the (non-discretionary) limits to their normative evolution. It thereby explores to what extent (indigenous) peoples can be designated as sovereign entities.

What does it mean for the people to actually rule? Formal democracy is an empty and cynical shell, while the nationalist Right claims to advance its anti-democratic project in the name of ‘the People’. How can the Left respond in a way that is true to both its radical egalitarianism and its desire to transform the real world? In this book, Gianpaolo Baiocchi argues that the only answer is a radical utopia of popular self-rule. This means that the ‘people’ who rule must be understood as a demos that is totally open, inclusive and egalitarian, constantly expanding its boundaries. But it also means that sovereignty must be absolute, possessing total power over all relevant decisions that impact the conditions of life. Only, he argues, by a process of explosive and creative tension between this radical view of the ‘we’ and an absolute idea of the ‘sovereign’ can we transform our approach to political parties and state institutions and make them instruments of total emancipation. Illustrated by the real-life experiences of movements throughout the world, from Latin America to Southern Europe, Baiocchi’s provocative vision will be essential reading for all activists who want to understand the true meaning of radical democracy in the 21st century.

By 2009, reverberations of economic crisis spread from the United States around the globe. As corporations across the United States folded, however, small businesses on the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) continued to thrive. In this rich ethnographic study, Courtney Lewis reveals the critical roles small businesses such as these play for Indigenous nations. The EBCI has an especially long history of incorporated, citizen-owned businesses located on their lands. When many people think of Indigenous-owned businesses, they stop with prominent casino gaming operations or natural-resource intensive enterprises. But on the Qualla Boundary today, Indigenous entrepreneurship and economic independence extends to art galleries, restaurants, a bookstore, a funeral parlor, and more. Lewis's fieldwork followed these businesses through the Great Recession and against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding EBCI-owned casino. Lewis's keen observations reveal how Eastern Band small business owners have contributed to an economic sovereignty that empowers and sustains their nation both culturally and politically.