Problems with Nation-States, part 2

[From HRH Jonathan]
    Let us now return to our discussion of nation-states, for that issue has not been concluded in part 1. I will open this second article on the matter with a pair of seemingly random questions: What does it mean to be free, and what is sovereignty? The first question will seem familiar, although the answer may be alien, and the second question will seem alien, but the answer will be very familiar. Thus I discuss them in the first place, for their meanings have been obscured by the paradigm in which we live.
          What is freedom? The only word to ehich you might receive more varied answers from people is 'humanity'. Some say that it is the simple ability to travel, act, and speak as you wish. That is technically true for some definitions of freedom, but is more accurately termed liberty, and is not the form of freedom I wish to discuss. Others would say it is the ability to do whatever you want, no matter what that may be. This is called license, or more accurately within politics, anarchy, and is a mutation of the freedom I am trying to touch upon. A few people would say that freedom is independence from those that would control you. This is a fascinating answer that is far closer to the truth than than any of the others, but it is still slightly off. When referring to 'freedom' within a society it cannot be truly defined until you know the answer to the second question.
          What is sovereignty? Do you know? It is in fact a word with many meanings, most of them implied. It can mean the authority of a leader, autonomy, excellence, control, or (interestingly enough) freedom from authority. So, in just one sentence the question we had so much difficulty answering (What is societal freedom?) falls into place. Sovereignty is legal control, the authority of controlling a segment of society, the purest power within society. It should be clear, then, that the only way to be truly free is to be sovereign over one's self.
          How, you may be wondering, does this tie in with nation-states? Simply. Within a nation-state system it is impossible to be truly free.
          Is it possible to be truly self-sovereign when you are born into citizenship? Is it possible to truly be free when the laws you abide by and the government you must obey are controlled only by place? Are you free when you must present papers and identifiers simply to travel where you wish? Are you independent enough to honestly be called a free man when you are forced into a social contract against your will? Are you sovereign when those same social contracts are implied, meaning they may change and grow at any time with no chance of control by you? No, no, no, no, and no. Indeed, throughout most of history these restrictions have been placed upon a single class of people only; slaves. Nation-states are unjust because they force people to surrender their sovereignty. Self-sovereignty is the truest measure of freedom, and not a single person possesses a scrap of it within a modern nation-state. If you cannot choose your own loyalties then you are a slave, a shift in language does not change that.
          In a feudal-state, on the other hand, self-sovereignty is all that there is. Higher loyalties are established only by oath, that is; sovereignty over others is gained only by agreement. Instead of having your citizenship determined by birth, it is determined purely by who you swear to obey. The social contract is a formalized mechanic in feudalism, not an unspoken effect, which leads to increased stability because no one can disagree on what the contract entails like they do today. In feudalism free men are free not just to go where they want, say what they want, and (within reason) do what they want, they are also capable of placing their loyalties where they want, even if that is nowhere.
          Feudalism is what Edan embraces. A truer form of freedom is what we strive for. The only way to become a citizen is to swear your allegiance to the King, the Constitution, and all authorities derived from them. You are not born or forced into the deal. Edan is not a place or even a system, it is an idea - an idea embodied  by the people who owe their allegiance to it. Edan is wherever his citizens are because they have agreed that is so. That is the goal of Edan, a world of sovereign individuals working together. A more just, more humane world, which can only be attained by feudalism.

Problems with Nation-States, part 1

[From HRH Jonathan]

  Anyone looking at Edan from the outside, or, more properly, from the inside of the modern paradigm, is liable to be some combination of confused, shocked, and uncomprehending at the traits we have given our Kingdom. Male-only suffrage has been addressed, aristocracy has been addressed, and many of our unspoken assumptions have been addressed, but there is a glaring omission in our discussion of Edan's paradigm; the fact that we are not a nation-state. All modern countries that exist as more than a scattering of refugees are nation-states, certainly the entire first world is composed of them, and to the best of my knowledge all other micronations have nation-statehood as their aim. But not us!
The immediate response/thought on this from most of you, the readers, is going to be a resounding, "What?" The reason for that is quite simple. Unless you are an advanced student of esoteric political theory, you may not even really know what the precise definition of a nation-state is, let alone how a country can not be one. I will address this. To describe a nation-state, I will ask you a simple question: what is a country? The most technically correct answer is, "Whatever a group of people who want to have/be a country say it is." but that is hardly an actual description.

Throughout most of the world and most of history, a country has been a group of people who pledge their allegiance to a common leader, and all the assets they collectively control. But in the mid-late colonial era Europe encountered a problem. That definition did not work any more. The reason for this was two-fold. First of all, they were colonial powers, who controlled vast swaths of land and huge numbers of people who had never granted their allegiance to anyone who controlled them now, even when colonization was accomplished peacefully. Secondly, and perhaps more insidiously, in many cases the common leader, the King, had been done away with and replaced with a shifting democratic government, leaving them with no one to pledge their allegiance to in the first place. So they redefined their countries. Redefined them to mean an area of land controlled by a particular government.

This had many interesting effects, some of which have been discussed here before. {that "before" should be a link to my 2011 article "Nation-states and War"} It changed the game considerably. In prior times, national borders were ill-defined, rarely more precise than, "That river marks our border," or, "Beyond the mountains it is your domain," and many countries would be mixed-together, as it were. In the north of modern-day France, for example, you could be French, Norman, or Burgundian depending entirely on what language you spoke and what allegiance you gave. There were even villages where multiple nationalities lived side by side on their identical homeland soil! Now, though, this was impossible. France and Burgundy were lines on a map; on one side you had to be French and on the other you had to be Burgundian, or else you would be kicked out for crossing to a land that wasn't "yours". Modern diplomacy is built around nation-statehood, how else can embassies work the way they do? Modern economics are built around nation-statehood, how else could international shipping even make sense? Politics, war, theory, research, laws, all subject to, and built on, nation-statehood.
So what in the world would a more traditional country look like? What would it even be called? The fact is that there are dozens of paradigms now forgotten, and all of them were dramatically different, but in the end they are all just a form of Feudalism. Not Feudalism as you almost certainly think of it, but what Feudalism actually is.  A paradigm based entirely upon loyalty, where a nation exists only as its citizens. A system where nationality and citizenship were derived purely from the oaths and loyalty given by each individual. This is Edan's goal; a more natural, human system.
Such a Feudal-state is totally alien to the way things work today. Even I, who have thought about it so very much, can barely comprehend what it would look like. Citizenship would be fluid, and borders would only be closed to those who had been exiled. Things that would be totally nonsensical in a nation-state paradigm, like officers commissioning in multiple armies or areas of land going ungoverned, would be commonplace. You would need not be naturalized into citizenship, joining a country is as simple as swearing your loyalty to it. When someone was given governing authority over something, it would not be over this jagged shape on a map, but over the area between these 5 landmarks, and all the people and things within it. A more natural system, with fewer rules, not because of any active effort to be simpler, but because those few rules are all you need.
That is what Edan will look like when we become real. We will not claim a place on a map or a region of the globe, we will claim all that our citizens owe to the Kingdom. Our domain will not be a place, but a people.
Still, the question remains, why? Why would we depart so far from what is known? Why would we select this system over all the others? Because we hold it as better. A more natural system that is easier to grasp, easier to work with, and in the long run simply easier to have around. Because it is an incredibly stable paradigm, where countries cannot truly be destroyed or collapse, but just go away for a little while. And because it is the paradigm that everyone who has ever felt frustration over visa paperwork or international bureaucracy has secretly wanted. A more human system, for a more human paradigm.