The transactional and territorial state
The transactional and territorial state
State formation as an administrative mechanism in the analogue world, which occurred after the advent of writing, had two consequences that remain with us today. First, the state became transactional. It was no longer only a human individualisation mechanism (materialised through the spoken word) that created an information processing environment suitable for individuals to live in, but, having expanded its information processing capacity exponentially, it took on a form that individuals could, and had to, transact with. Second, the state became territorial (meaning, physically installed in a specific location; on how state territoriality actually works, see §17.00.04). It no longer only resided in the minds and (spoken) words of its citizens, but from that point on occupied a territory, which was the area in which the information processing infrastructure was installed. Accordingly, as soon as an infrastructure was created (given also the crude means it employed, meaning clay tablets etc.) it could no longer be moved around. States could no longer be nomadic. (No longer nomadic, but not, however, necessarily meaning not movable: see, for example, the Mongol empire – obviously, for the Mongols themselves, not for the conquered peoples who continued to live in the, conquered, states of their own, see also §07.00.11). From that point on states occupied specific places in the analogue world, their territory (on state territory, see §17.00.00).
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