This book addresses the profound change that modern technology has the capacity to make in democracy itself. While very little has changed in the machinery of the representative system since the late 1700s, that arrangement is starting to unravel. The technology by which the people receive their information and make their will known, is being revolutionized.
These new technological capabilities are likely to reinforce a powerful development that was already under way: an unprecedented rise in referendums and petitions across the globe. Technology now holds the capacity to transfer more power directly to the people, including on the all-important questions of how the state taxes and spends.
This book has been written by an experienced analyst who worked in the financial centres in London, New York and Zurich. His research is based on a careful analysis of the data and a deep understanding of the likely financial consequences of these trends.
It is by drawing on the evidence from diverse fields - politics, economics, finance and information technology - and by describing that evidence in laymen's terms, that this book unlocks original insights into where these trends might be leading.