Niklas Luhmann, 2002:

"Conceived as an operationally closed system, modern society is world society. It's function systems could never agree on regional, national, or cultural boundaries. The system of science, the economic system, the system of mass media operate and observe clearly on a worldwide level. But the political system nowadays, too, is a world system, segmented into 'states' to achieve a better fit between political power and changing conditions of public consensus. [...] But this does not mean that the social ends and begins at political boundaries -say, between the United States and Mexico, or between Germany and Austria. Tourists enjoy (to some extent) legal protection and the staged authenticity of customs and traditions all over the world. We can intermarry, whatever our national origins. Conversion from one religion to another is possible, if religions care at all for an exclusive identity and membership. But in spite of all this, the global system or modern society seems not to be able to produce one and only one self-description."

-Niklas Luhmann (2002:107), 'Deconstruction as Second Order Observing' (94-112), in Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity, Stanford University Press 2002.