Would you support a one world democratic government centralized as the EU? What about a world government centralized as much as the current USA?
If we’re talking about one as benign as the EU has proven to be? Why not?
I don’t have a problem with the principle, but I’m not sure how it would actually work in practice. If it were set up like the EU, I think it would be ok.
No. I would prefer less and more local government. Moreover, the US is a Republic and the EU barely even that. Both are designed, in different ways, to mitigate the effects of public opinion. I think the U.S. has implemented direct or semi- democracy in some bad ways, where the E.U. has taken out almost entirely the democratic component. The latter is largely a playground for self-appointed elites.
The nature of governments is that they tend to accumulate power without limit over time, except where they are constrained by outside and internal forces. The problem with very large governments is that internal forces tend to either accumulate until breaking (often causing a civil war) or largely cancel out. It depends greatly on how large the power blocs are. The later case is almost worse, because you then tend to get rapidly centralizing and tyrannous government which keeps the seperate blocs from accumulating enough power to change. And without an outside threat - or more importantly, comparison - of any kind, the state again tends to grab power while losing competence.
The end result is generally not pleasant, and becomes very unsustainable. This basically is what happened to Soviet Russia (or rather, part of why it became Soviet) and Communist China. The only thing which led to these falling apart was the external influences they couldn’t shut off. North Korea’s and Burma’s governments actually managed to do so, and we can easily see what happened there. We see there that the larger a government the worse its responsiveness to local differences. America managed to partly overcome this with Federalism, but even that’s in constant tension and change.
No, a successful government culture I define as one which is reasonably democratic but protected against the wilder populism and majoritism), protects the power of ordinary people to improve their lot, maintains order and law, and remains limited both in space and in claimed authority. This always permits people to leave in some form of another short of civil war.
No. Neither the EU (Like was said by bandit, a playground for elites) nor the US (just as much so) are a model I’d like to have for a world government. Worldwide direct democracy is the only model of world government I can see myself supporting.
God, no. There are billions of people in the world whom I would not want to have any power over me.
What, like the Swiss model? God help me no, I’ve lived there!
Like Alessan, there’s lots of people I’d rather not share voting booths with.
Not quite, but not that far removed. The Swiss model is supplemented by a parliamentary decision-making precoss we could do without. I mean true direct democracy - everyone can have a say in every decision that affects them, and politicans as a class, if you have to have them, only exist to carry out others’ decisions, and are not allowed to make their own proposals other than through the same channels as any other citizen (the Swiss model of petition is actually quite a good one IMO).
Did you vote there? What was wrong with their political setup?
One world government is impossible until you remove the kind of prejudices that Alessen and Nava demonstrate. And even then it would be undesirable, most issues are local and should be handled locally. Finally it won’t work, should we spend funds on a new road in Bogata? Or Berlin?.
Over the last 100 or so years, we seem to have harmonised laws, procedures and standards where expedient for global trade. Thats all that should be done.
But the OP’s hypothetical doesn’t exclude this. Both the US and Eu are tiered structures.
Why should I trust some rich out of touch snob in Zürich to have enough of an insight to handle a local situation? Like say you have to deal with beavers in your neck of the woods. A mayor and city council made up of people who grew up on a farm is more likely to relate to the situation and make the best decision for the community.
Large governments tend to create an out of touch ruling class. You can imagine how out of touch a global government would be.
This is why in America local laws overrule national laws.
I’d like to point out that true direct democracy is extremely oppressive to the minority. You could forget about same sex marriage in a democracy.
This is why America was founded as a Democratic Republic. The founding fathers truly were brilliant, weren’t they?
Hell frackin no.
Mainly because if it goes to shit, where are you going to go? Mars?
And you don’t even have to invoke the rise of an evil gubment for it to be a problem.
What if a major social problem develops (which they always do sooner or later). And these one world gubment types “**know **the problem and know how to fix it”. And the attempt to fix it makes it worse cause it dont work in reality. “Oh, we must not a done enough of it, lets do more”, worse still…downward spiral.
I’d rather have dozens, if not hundreds of nations. If they can all get along great and sing kumbiya, great. But I want to see many ways to deal with social and economic problems and somewhere to go if my boat starts to go under. And I sure dont want EVERYONE on the same boat.
I don’t their views as prejudice as much as a realistic objection (which I admittedly share). The majority of people in the world live in dictatorships. If we were all one big country, these people would not suddenly become believers in democracy. Even if it was officially a democracy, you’re going to see Hu Jintao getting more votes than Barack Obama.
No, that’s local direct democracy. Highly decentralized; cantons are autonomous.
But, those billions of people come from a wide range of civilizational cultures, none of which encompasses a majority of the global population; and there are also potential transcultural divisions along the lines of social class and many other factors. Consider how difficult it would be to get a majority of such a diverse electorate to agree on anything; and if someone can get a majority to agree on something, how can it be a bad idea? I’m reminded of Madison’s famous argument in Federalist No. 10, that the sheer size and diversity of the new U.S. was a guarantee that republican government would work here.
And yet the religious right, with all its divisions, seems to have quite a bit of power in the U.S. - even without a majority. So was Madison wrong?
I would actually pefer Hu Jintao to Obama, he has far more experience than him.
Maximum I could see is a sort of a global parliament in the UN along the lines of the EU Parliament one which represents the people rather then nations.
No way, at least not for the foreseeable future.
Maybe.
In general, I’d like to see local governments cede more authority to the federal government (e.g. some local governments, like Detroit or Las Vegas, really have no business even attempting to continue their education departments) but I’m wary of a one world government. There are way too many cultural differences in the world for there to be one.