@jonathancolton

TLDR: The Coordination Monopoly Just Broke—And Most People Don’t Realize It In September 2025, Nepal’s government banned 26 social media platforms to suppress youth protests against corruption. Within 48 hours, 100,000 citizens migrated to Discord and organized anyway. Four days later, the Prime Minister resigned. The replacement government was chosen through online polls on a gaming platform. That’s not a political story. It’s an economic one—and a powerful one. For 200 years, large-scale coordination was expensive—prohibitively so. If you wanted to organize thousands of people, move money internationally, or enforce agreements between strangers, you needed institutions: governments, corporations, and banks. They didn’t dominate because they were superior. They dominated because they were the only ones who could afford the infrastructure for coordination at scale. That monopoly just dissolved. The Three Faces of Power Are Breaking Simultaneously Political scientist Steven Lukes identified three dimensions of power: direct coercion, agenda-setting, and consciousness-shaping. For 200 years, institutions had a monopoly across all three. Now all three are breaking at once: -First face (coercion): When coordination costs collapse below suppression costs, coercion fails. Nepal’s government couldn’t ban platforms faster than citizens could route around them. The math changed—suppression became more expensive than coordination. -Second face (gatekeeping): Institutions controlled what was even possible—what payments could happen, what innovations could be built, who could participate. Permissionless systems obliterate this. Discord couldn’t prevent Nepalis from using gaming infrastructure for a revolution. Ethereum can’t prevent developers from building bank competitors. The gates are gone. Users set their own agenda. -Third face (consciousness): We internalized that coordination “requires” institutions. Of course, you need banks for money. Obviously, you need corporations for complex projects. That’s just common sense. Permissionless systems are breaking this mental monopoly. When 100,000 people coordinate government selection through Discord, when AI agents coordinate supply chains autonomously, the “common sense” that institutions are necessary dissolves. What makes this unprecedented: all three faces are collapsing simultaneously. Nepal wasn’t just regime change—it was all three dimensions of power inverting in real time. The Numbers Make It Real Open source protocols, permissionless networks, and cryptographic trust have driven coordination costs toward zero: -Stablecoin networks moved $27 trillion in 2024—rivaling Visa, but anyone can build on them -Coinbase reached $80 billion market cap in 13 years, providing infrastructure for permissionless assets -1.3 billion unbanked adults can now access dollar-denominated money with just a phone -DAOs coordinate billions in capital without corporate structures or traditional hierarchies Here’s the pattern: When coordination was expensive, you got centralized institutions controlling access. When coordination becomes cheap, you get three things: Coordination becomes public infrastructure, not corporate asset - Like Ethereum coordinating global compute without owning computers, or stablecoins coordinating payments without owning payment rails Power shifts from ownership to orchestration - Coinbase doesn’t own the crypto you trade. Circle doesn’t own the dollars backing USDC. They orchestrate systems but can’t coerce, gatekeep, or control consciousness. They have to be useful, not just powerful. Self-governing micro-economies scale to macro impact - Nepal’s Discord servers coordinated 100,000 people faster than their government could respond. No headquarters. No formal membership. Just permissionless tools and emergent organization. Then Add AI Agents They’re already managing liquidity pools, executing trades across protocols in milliseconds, and coordinating supply chains autonomously—all on permissionless rails, all at machine speed. AI agents make all three faces of institutional power impossible to maintain: - Can’t coerce (coordination happens too fast to suppress) - Can’t gatekeep (protocols are open) - Can’t control consciousness (people experience autonomous coordination directly) When Nepal’s humans coordinated in days, they moved faster than the government. When AI agents coordinate in milliseconds on open protocols, they move faster than institutions can perceive. This Is the Sixth Great Technological Surge Economist Carlota Perez documented five great surges over 250 years—each reshaping society for 50+ years. Permissionless systems may be the sixth. The pattern fits: breakthrough technology (open protocols + cryptographic networks), early financial adoption (crypto/stablecoins/DAOs), institutional resistance (bans and regulations), infrastructure building (Coinbase/Circle), and a new paradigm emerging. This isn’t decentralization as ideology. It’s decentralization as economic inevitability. You can’t maintain a monopoly on coordination when anyone can coordinate. You can’t control information flows when information flows freely. You can’t gatekeep access when access is permissionless. You can’t coerce when suppression costs more than coordination. You can’t shape consciousness when people directly experience alternatives. Nepal’s Prime Minister tried to shut down coordination by banning social media. He resigned four days later. That’s what happens when you bet against economic gravity and all three faces of power break simultaneously. What Emerges Isn’t Reform—It’s Inversion The institutions that survive won’t be those with the most resources or strongest coercion. They’ll be the ones that can provide value without relying on any of the three faces of traditional power. They’ll shift from command-and-control to stewardship. From owners of closed systems to participants in open networks. From hoarding resources they control to orchestrating resources they don’t. The coordination monopoly that shaped 200 years of institutional dominance is dissolving. The three faces of institutional power—coercion, gatekeeping, and consciousness-shaping—are breaking simultaneously. Most people don’t realize what they’re witnessing. Do you? Read the full essay: “The End of the Coordination Monopoly: What Nepal’s Four-Day Revolution Reveals About the Future of Power” - 8,900 words exploring economic inevitability, the three faces of power, AI agents at machine speed, and institutional inversion https://paragraph.com/@jonathancolton.eth/the-collapse-of-the-coordination-monopoly

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