A follow up to this thread. If there is to be something akin to one world government, keeping the present political climate model is one that could actually work?
The only one that I see working is one is where something like the WTO and GATT evolve to become something like the EEC was before the Maastrict Treaty. Economic affairs are something which governments have lost substantial power on.
Influence in the government should be relative to population size and the level of integrity of the host governments. For example, a nation like North Korea (22 million people and a horrible dictatorship) shouldn’t be anywhere near the level of Japan with 120 million people and a functioning liberal democracy.
So influence in the government should be dependent on the level of liberal democracy in the member countries as well as their population.
And I would personally support one that just focuses on major problems based on either individual suffering or sustainability. Basic health care, basic education, climate change, environmental degradation, labor laws, civil rights, human rights, etc. Basically a promotion of the Universal declaration of human rights to whatever degree possible.
My view is to take organizations like the WHO and ICC and dramatically increase their funding. I think the ICC should have an independent military force capable of performing kidnappings and international arrests.
It’s hard to imagine how a OWG gerrymandered to give liberal democracies more power would ever get started - unless it grew out of some other liberal super-national institution.
I don’t think the OWG should have any authority over health care, education or labour laws - that would be the beginning of the slippery slope that the anti-s fear. More importantly, I don’t think the OWG could efficiently deal with those issues. Local government could deal with them more effectively.
It is possible. There are about 92 liberal democracies on earth right now (out of about 190 countries). That trend is expected to continue. Liberal democracies control most of the world’s wealth, so they could start something if they wanted to. And as I pointed out in another thread, there is a connection between liberal democracy and per capita income. Once income goes above $3000-6000 per person per year, the chances of transitioning to democracy greatly improve. So as the world becomes wealthier, it should become more democratic.
I think when China becomes a liberal democracy, that will allow the world to promote a OWG based on liberal democracy. Right now I don’t think its possible with a superpower like China that is autocratic.
I don’t think local governments can deal with them as well as they sometimes should, and I think certain basic international standards (based on the universal declaration of human rights) should supersede national ones. I believe there are certain aspects of human dignity and human worth that transcend local political views. When Jim Crow was ended, the federal government forced various state and local governments in the south to integrate schools. That is fine by me.
Not all nations have the wealth or interest to provide all their citizens with basic infrastructure, healthcare and education. So a world government could help provide those things along with NGOs, corporate interests and government charities.
The second-best model (after all the world submitting to My Divine and Imperial Yoke) would be something along the lines of the European Union – which, might, indeed, grow out of an expanded EU, as proposed in this thread.
It’s good that the schools were integrated but I’d like to think that they would’ve ended up that way eventually anyway. Federal intervention might have shaved 20 years or so off the date - which is clearly a good thing - but that kind of federal power comes at a cost.
There are several other progressive trends over the last hundred years where government intervention can serve to accelerate the trends a little - but I suspect that the government action is a symptom of the trend, not a cause.
It’s true that the cases like civil rights and, internationally, Burma, North Korea, Rwanda, Zimbabwe & Saddam Hussein’s Iraq are heartbreaking and cry out for intervention by a higher power but I tend to think that intervention is as likely to do harm as good and I’d rather not grant the feds (or the OWG) that power.
What about repression? History has shown us that it’s possible for a minority with access to superior organizational skills or weaponry to oppress a majority for quite a long time, provided that the minority isn’t afraid to brutally suppress any discontent by the majority, while, at the same time, indoctrinating the majority to support its rule and co-opting members of the majority into its elite. It worked for Rome for quite a while, it worked for the Soviet Union, as inefficient as it was, for 70 years, and it still works for China today.
So, is there some way that’s feasible?
Repression can only get you so far, after a while it becomes counter productive.
Sure, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still work; just worse than a less repressive government would.