Onward to the Hollow State
Is the US hollowing out? The ongoing migrant crisis indicates it is.
What’s going on at the border?
Both the US and the EU are in the midst of an ongoing and accelerating migrant crisis of unprecedented scale (in the US, over the last three years alone, there have been ~6.5m apprehended migrants and ~1.5m ‘gotaways’-- enough to become the 13th largest state).
Neither the US nor the EU appear to be able to contain or solve this crisis. National decision-making has broken down.
In the vacuum created, opportunistic corporations, non-governmental organizations, and criminal groups are exacerbating the crisis to loot the system.
We’ve seen this complex crisis dynamic numerous times (the permacrisis). The most notable previous examples are:
9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.
The financial crisis.
COVID.
What’s going on? After the 2007 financial crisis, I developed the ‘hollow state’ framework to describe what was happening. Here’s what I wrote then (updated slightly for relevance) and how it would play out:
The Hollow State (Global Guerrillas 2007):
The hollow state has the trappings of a modern nation-state ("elected leaders," membership in international organizations, regulations, laws, and a bureaucracy), but it lacks any of the legitimacy, services, and control of its historical counterpart. It is merely a shell that has some influence over the economy's spoils. The real power rests in the hands of corporations, criminals, superempowered inviduals, and guerrillas (tribal networks) that vie with each other to control sectors of wealth production. For the rest of us, life goes on within a hollow state, but it is debased in myriad ways.
The shift from a marginally functional nation-state to a hollow state occurs through series of crisis events.
With each crisis, corporations and connected individuals systematically loot the nation-state of financial assets and natural resources in a series of insider/no-cost deals. These deals are made to "save" the nation from collapse. Meanwhile, guerrilla and criminal groups, ruthlessly exploit the vacuum it creates.
For individuals, the experience is a sustained decline in the standard of living. Over time, critical items and services become increasingly inaccessible -- from healthcare to housing. Small businesses disappear or become prey to connected companies or individuals with access to the remaining coercive power of the nation-state. As deprivation becomes commonplace, people turn to primary loyalties for support and services -- loyalties to a corporation, tribe, gang, family, or community.
These non-state groups, energized by new levels of loyalty but deeply obligated to reciprocate this loyalty with support, become highly aggressive in pursuit of their survival. Once this shift in loyalty is made, a self-generating cycle of violence, crime, and corruption (fueled largely by backdoor connections to the global market system) becomes entrenched. At that point, the nation-state becomes irretrievably hollow.
Onward to the Hollow State
The capitalist Western nation-state, the victor of a five-hundred-year battle for supremacy between alternative systems, has become a victim of its success. The globalization and networking it used to cement its victory at the end of the 20th Century is hollowing with each successive crisis. With each event, it:
Loses Control. Over its physical security (the border, criminality, etc.), national dialogue and debate (due to networking), finances (multinational corps, budgets, etc.), and more.
Bleeds Legitimacy. Due to the complexity of the new environment, the nation-state finds itself increasingly unable to make decisions, and when it does, it overreacts. This failure has led to a significant loss of legitimacy.
Is Looted. As the nation-state becomes weaker, alternatives arise to exploit the opportunity. These corporations, wealthy individuals, criminal groups, NGOs, rogue institutions, and tribal political networks find ways to exacerbate crisis events and loot and coerce the system as it becomes vulnerable.
The Migrant Crisis
Let’s put the current migrant crisis into that framework.