# Why don't we establish a world government? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 3, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885 "2013-03-03T03:58:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/141 "2013-03-05T17:06:53Z")
> [@Anonymous User](#): > > **Dissonance** , **Ibn Warraq** , and **msmith537** , my replies to you are currently under construction. They should be up in a few hours. Thank you, no need to rush though. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/142 "2013-03-05T17:27:47Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :dubious: And what size would that be? The size where you no longer bump into your elected leaders once or twice a year in the local supermarket, pub, cinema, brothel, or wherever. > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Au contraire. > > In my experience, local governments at the city, county, and state level have vastly more corruption than the much, much larger federal government. > > Rhode Island, my home state, is a perfect example. We’re the smallest state in the country and are so famous for our corruption that we had the former Mayor of Providence run the city from jail. Corruption thrives best in anonymity and closed gatherings. The closer the decision makers are to the consequences of the decisions they are making the less abstract the issues will be for them. The same with the money. A person is less likely to defraud the kind lady next door for ten dollars, than take ten million dollars from an obscure multibillion state fund that gets its money from anonymous tax-donors and spend it on God knows what. The citizens’ ability to react to being defrauded by corrupt officials are also much easier when they are closer and the steps required less. And the fraud is easier to detect when the corrupt official is not merely an anonymous face in a gigantic bureaucracy. Case in point the EU: an army of anonymous and faceless bureaucrats and voted representatives doing who knows what, having access to hundreds of billions of euros, and little in the way of oversight. No wonder they’ve become byword for corruption. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/143 "2013-03-05T20:04:54Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > The size where you no longer bump into your elected leaders once or twice a year in the local supermarket, pub, cinema, brothel, or wherever. That would make most U.S. states too big. Tyrannies they ain’t. They do have some corruption – but, allowing for scope and opportunity, no more than you’ll find at the local level, where you **can** bump into your leaders at the supermarket – and, probably rather less than at the federal level, where scrutiny is higher. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/144 "2013-03-05T20:31:27Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Most decisions are best made as close to the citizens as possible. Democracy above a certain size is just another word for corruption and tyranny. Regarding that, see [“Lind’s Law”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=652504): “The lower the level of government, the more crooked and inefficient the public employees.” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/145 "2013-03-05T21:07:04Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > . . . How is this world government supposed to function? Like, if Syria has a civil war, the world government would step in and put a stop to the civil war? Except does that mean helping the rebels, or helping the government? . . . Well, if Alabama had a civil war, would the U.S. side with the rebels or the government? The idea of a government is to legislate with such sufficient legitimacy as to prevent things from getting to the point of rebellion in the first place. If Syria had had a good government, it would have responded to the people’s demands, thus avoiding the war. Alabama, currently, has a good enough government to keep war from erupting. A good enough world government would have cleaned up Syrian corruption long, long ago. There would never have been a need (so to speak) for a revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/146 "2013-03-05T21:29:18Z")
How the fuck are we supposed to establish a world government to clean up Syria when we have to clean up Syria before we can have a world government? Yeah, a functioning world government wouldn’t have problems like Syria to deal with, because it would be a functioning world government. Also, this world government would run on unicorn farts, and its only pollution would be rainbows. At least 2/3rds of the world population live under authoritarian and/or non-liberal governments. We can’t just wave away the existence of these people as we establish world government, since the point of world government would seem to be to improve these people’s lives. So how do we get there from here? A new Iraq and a new Afghanistan every other year until the world is living in harmony? It seems to me that people who live in decent countries don’t need a world government to fix their problems, because decent countries can resolve disputes among themselves. The people who don’t live in decent countries might benefit from world governance, except how are you going to actually go about implementing this? Again, are the rulers of China going to agree to this project? If China isn’t onboard with this global government, then it isn’t exactly a world government, is it? And a world government that has the enthusiastic backing of the Chinese government, well, what exactly do you suppose that sort of world government would look like, and why would Americans and Europeans and Canadians and Japanese want to give up their sovereignty to live under a system that China would endorse? Or if the world government doesn’t have the power to actually change things in Europe and America, it’s just to stomp on third world countries, well, how is that different than what we have now? If the US and France and the UK and Russia and China all together decide to allow the stomping of some country, then said stomping will go forward, and we’ve got Iraq again. Dictators aren’t going to give up their privileges without a fight, and liberal democracies aren’t going to live under the whims of authoritarian governments. Yes, we can continue to build global governance–that is, a system of methods to resolve disputes, useful enough that even states that lose a dispute agree to abide by the rulings of the body, because often enough the dispute-resolving mechanism produces results in their favor that they aren’t willing to tip over the gameboard and go home. But there’s no particular need for the United States and Canada to have a larger government to report to to resolve disputes between the US and Canada, we can resolve disputes between ourselves ourselves. We don’t need a global government to do so. And if we want to resolve disputes between, say, the United States and North Korea, well, North Korea isn’t going to abide by the rulings of any putative world government are they? Unless the alternative is invasion. And if we want to invade North Korea, we don’t exactly need a world government to do so, do we? What holds us back is prudence, because wars are expensive and nasty and shit. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/147 "2013-03-05T23:03:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Some people also don’t want racial integration, or religious freedom for minority faiths, or rights for gays. > > If your model for a government relies on unanimous consent, it isn’t going to happen. > > If, however, the model is like the model for the industrialized democracies, where legitimacy does not depend on unanimity, a world government is entirely possible. Are you saying that it doesn’t matter what the opinions of a minority that exists entirely outside of your sovereign domain are? That as long as a world government has a governmental system that’s based like the one the US has (which is different than most European parliamentary systems) that even if a nation is vehemently against joining, tough titties to them? I’m not advocating racial separation, religious intolerance, or homophobia but let’s not pretend that the “model for the industrialized democracies” can do a damn thing about it for instances that are outside of their jurisdiction. There are many countries out there that have laws against interracial marriage and homosexuality. Add “We don’t want to be a part of your world government” to that list, and what legal recourse could someone trying to start up a world government do about it? Let’s say I am a country that doesn’t want racial integration, religious freedom, or rights for gays… like Saudi Arabia where women can’t marry outside of the Arab race. Or Egypt where you can’t marry an Israeli. Or one of the 76 countries that outlaw homosexual behaviors. What recourse does the US have to change that? We can outvote Saudi Arabia and Egypt easily. Is it that easy? Fuck, does Congress know about this? Then fuck invading North Korea. Let’s just issue a referendum. Fuck you North Korea, we don’t need unanimity! Just the power of a majority under a democratic republic! ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2013, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/148 "2013-03-05T23:20:43Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > like Saudi Arabia where women can’t marry outside of the Arab race. What are you talking about. I know people who’ve married Saudi women. Yes, you can’t perform interfaith marriages in Saudi Arabia but there’s nothing preventing say Pakistanis from marrying Saudis, though if the husbands aren’t Saudi citizens they’re denied a number rights that Saudi citizens have and becoming a Saudi citizen is very difficult. It’s also worth noting that non-Saudi Arabs, such as Lebanese, Egyptians or Moroccans, have similar issues. > [@](#): > > Or Egypt where you can’t marry an Israeli Are you sure? Again, interfaith marriages aren’t recognized in Egypt, though the same is true in Israel, but I don’t see why an Israeli Arab Muslim would have any issues marrying an Egyptian Muslim. > [@](#): > > Or one of the 76 countries that outlaw homosexual behaviors. True, and for that matter transgendered people in Iran would probably be quite upset about the idea of Americans and other westerners having a say in their civil rights since transgendered people are treated better and suffer less discrimination in Iran than they do in most of the west. You start going down the rabbit hole and you’d be surprised at the things that you discover. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/149 "2013-03-06T00:44:25Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > If you consider the history of human development it is inevitable that eventually there will be one government to rule them all. . Of course the hard part is to get all the leaders to wear a pretty gold ring at the same time… ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/150 "2013-03-06T01:47:28Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > How the fuck are we supposed to establish a world government to clean up Syria when we have to clean up Syria before we can have a world government? . . . No; we’d approach both incrementally. We’d put more and more pressure on dictators – as we currently are, via economic sanctions – and more and more rewards to regions that work toward unification. The U.S. did it (yeah, it took a war…) Europe is working in that direction (yeah, it took 1500 years of wars…) It isn’t the sort of thing that leaps up fully grown like Athena from Zeus’ brow – but it is possible. You seem to imagine that progress is impossible, and I disagree. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/151 "2013-03-06T01:51:38Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > Are you saying that it doesn’t matter what the opinions of a minority that exists entirely outside of your sovereign domain are? That as long as a world government has a governmental system that’s based like the one the US has (which is different than most European parliamentary systems) that even if a nation is vehemently against joining, tough titties to them? Nope. I’m saying that distinct domains can be possible, with different rules. A world government doesn’t have to involve one set of laws for all regions. And if a nation doesn’t want to join, I don’t see anything to be gained by forcing them to join. They simply don’t gain the benefits, and may be subject to some economic sanctions if their rejection becomes dangerous or aggressive. The sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program are a possible model for the international enforcement mechanism of a world government. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/152 "2013-03-06T02:36:31Z")
The point I was originally trying to make was that if people on an internet forum couldn’t agree to establish a world government, good luck on getting nations to. Then trinopus countered with: > [@](#): > > Some people also don’t want racial integration, or religious freedom for minority faiths, or rights for gays. > > If your model for a government relies on unanimous consent, it isn’t going to happen. > > If, however, the model is like the model for the industrialized democracies, where legitimacy does not depend on unanimity, a world government is entirely possible. Which to me sounds completely opposite to: > [@](#): > > I’m saying that distinct domains can be possible, with different rules. A world government doesn’t have to involve one set of laws for all regions. Did you just say that majority rule of a western democracy doesn’t require unanimity to enforce a uniform set of laws on a country? Large swaths of the US disagreed with racial equality and yet now despite that vocal minority one set of law rules all the regions? Or are you advocating for different regions of the US to operate with different sets of laws? My point was that other nations have different expectations. In SA, it’s difficult to marry outside of GCC nations. It’s my understanding that you have to petition the government and have someone pretty high up signing off on it, effectively making it impossible especially if it’s a woman petitioning. In Egypt, it’s equally difficult to do so with an Israeli. I wasn’t trying to cast judgment on those nations. I didn’t say that was right or wrong. I’m merely pointing out that their way of life is different than Americans, and that to “force” the “majority” opinion on other people simply because it’s a majority viewpoint would be difficult. I wasn’t looking to say one side is better. **Ibn Warraq** , you are correct that I would be surprised at whatever else there is to learn, but you help my point in pointing out that transgendered are treated better. My point isn’t to say if one side is more tolerant but rather countries are drastically different and “majority rules” doesn’t apply. Oh, and > [@](#): > > And if a nation doesn’t want to join, I don’t see anything to be gained by forcing them to join. Then how in the world would you have a world government that doesn’t involve… the world? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/153 "2013-03-06T02:50:38Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Regarding that, see [“Lind’s Law”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=652504): “The lower the level of government, the more crooked and inefficient the public employees.” Indeed. If politics is local, so can be oppression and abuse. If you speak out of turn at a town meeting, it isn’t some distant dictator in the capital that’ll sign the paper sending you to a re-education camp, it’ll be the local mayor or police chief or theocrat or party member, whose power derives from that distant dictator, even if the dictator has no clue who any of you are. If the system is working, a citizen can call upon a distant legislator (i.e. not a dictator) to yank the local official’s leash, and I suppose that _might_ be somewhat within the scope of a world government - cracking down on local, regional and national abuses. Basically, I’d want the world government to protect me against the national government, the national government to protect me from the regional one, and the regional one to protect me from the municipal one, which (arguably) has the greatest influence on my day-to-day life. Funny thing, to consider that half a liberal-democracy government’s function is to serve the people, and the other hand to is prevent itself from oppressing the people. I suppose it’s when governments start viewing and treating citizens like children to be controlled, nurtured and disciplined that we have a problem. Theocracies, I observe, are especially prone to this -often having as a basic premise the humans are essentially weak and evil and unworthy of the divine authority that rules them through its agents on Earth, i.e. priests and mullahs and whatnot. Frankly, anyone who proposes a system of government that can’t maintain and improve my current level of freedom gets a hearty and well-deserved “go fuck yourself” from me. Go fuck yourself with a rusty bayonet, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/154 "2013-03-06T02:51:56Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > Then how in the world would you have a world government that doesn’t involve… the world? Heck, we had some World Wars that didn’t, strictly speaking, involve the entire world. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/155 "2013-03-06T03:23:38Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > The point I was originally trying to make was that if people on an internet forum couldn’t agree to establish a world government, good luck on getting nations to. Ah! Sorry, that wasn’t clear to me. But, again, vast numbers of us, here, disagree, profoundly, on all sorts of things…does that mean the U.S. government, or the British gov’t, etc. aren’t possible? That we disagree – and aren’t shooting each other – suggests that government works to some degree… > [@](#): > > Did you just say that majority rule of a western democracy doesn’t require unanimity to enforce a uniform set of laws on a country? Large swaths of the US disagreed with racial equality and yet now despite that vocal minority one set of law rules all the regions? Or are you advocating for different regions of the US to operate with different sets of laws? Actually, yeah. California has different laws than Oklahoma, after all. I’m leaving room for different regions of the World to operate with different sets of laws. In time, I would hope that certain fundamental freedoms would become universal, but I don’t want to endanger regional sovereignty…too much. > [@](#): > > . . . I’m merely pointing out that their way of life is different than Americans, and that to “force” the “majority” opinion on other people simply because it’s a majority viewpoint would be difficult. Agreement; this is why I’m arguing in favor of a kind of Federalism. > [@](#): > > . . . how in the world would you have a world government that doesn’t involve… the world? Gradually and incrementally. If Switzerland, say, is the last hold-out, I’ll be pretty darn content! ---
**Author:** ![Kepler1571](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/db5fbb/32.png) [@Kepler1571](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kepler1571)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/156 "2013-03-06T16:13:24Z")
We’ll only establish a world government when the Tripods come. We are apes, and that is how apes think. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885/157 "2013-03-07T01:32:19Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > We’ll only establish a world government when the Tripods come. We are apes, and that is how apes think. If the Tripods are the ones from the original _War of the Worlds_, modern militaries can destroy it under two minutes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-establish-a-world-government/651885.md?page=7)