Albert Einstein wanted world government.

[Eclipse Now]

In my opinion the only salvation for civilization and the human race lies in the creation of a world government, with security of nations founded upon law. As long as sovereign states continue to have separate armaments and armament secrets, new world wars will be inevitable.”

 

I'm sorry all. I know this to be a true quote from Albert Einstein, but I can't show this to be true... unless you take Wikiquotes as enough evidence.

 

It refers to a document at

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/COURSES/GENS4008/newCh1.pdf which is the University of New South Wales and is in an essay titled: "The Need for World Federation" which BrianG will argue is biased towards accepting this source: and so BrianG will go on arguing we cannot know it to be true.

 

The most frustrating part of it was I was recently listening to a complicated 55 minute biography of the life of Albert Einstein which used this quote in full and discussed it, and if I could just remember the title of the talk and who gave it I'd be able to contact them and nut out the source of the quote... the details.

 

I have contacted a member of the WCA Australia and hope he'll have more information. Sorry all.

 

 

As far as how a World Federation would work, I'd take the Lisbon Treaty as a helpful guide. Nations combine economic power and strength, and in doing so sacrifice a little of their national sovereignty in some areas of national life for the greater good and advantage to citizens of having:-

* less chance of war erupting

* greater economic co-operation

* meaningful legislation on global issues (like global warming, peak oil, transport systems for a post-oil world, etc).

* As others have already wisely noted, the world's military spending could be cut drastically and the money put into other forms of more rewarding endeavour such as feeding the world's poor, educating them, helping them reach their potential and become productive members of a global community.

* Just 5% of world military spending could feed the poor, give them freshwater, education, adequate shelter (think Earthship, not McMansion), medical, and family planning services. (Professor Ian Lowe, Australian Conservation Foundation).

 

Given these things are good in and of themselves, and also encourage a 'demographic transition' which would prevent exponential population growth leading us into other disasters, I'd be MORE than delighted to see 5% of world military spending going into solving the world's problems!

[Eclipse Now]

Indeed, it's difficult to imagine a wold government whose states would be as heterogeneous as they currently are. Civil war in a world government may be just as likely, or even more likely, as world war with autonomous governments.

 

~modest

 

Hi Modest,

I haven't heard that before. Most sociologists and political philosophers I read assume that a world government would make war far less likely. What makes you think a world government making legislation about the "big things" would make war more likely?

 

Let's define war in the traditional and common sense of a conflict between 2 larger nation-states, and not some sort of vaguely defined internal conflict or guerrilla action as in Darfur or Afghanistan.

 

Edit to add: And surely with the world's military spending now drastically reduced, and the attention now less focussed on possible action between the big players, maybe there would be more money and a more concerted effort to deal with Africa's problems and march in and SOLVE Darfur, Somalia, etc once and for all!

 

(I'm really dreaming now, but surely countries like Iraq and Afghanistan will get there one day now that they have a form of democratic government? Surely they'll boost their army and police to the point where, sometime down the track, their new freedoms and economic prosperity will help subdue the terrorists by making terrorism less appealing simply because there are less marginalised youth in society?)

[TheBigDog]

The process of evolution is not bound exclusively to genetics. It applies to the continuous improvement of everything. Our social structures have evolved as our needs have changed through time. From tribes and clans to countries and dynasties; there is a process of incremental change tied to inspired leadership and social need. There are experiments along the way of varying effectiveness. We learn, we adjust, we slide back, we step forward, and over time we manage to make things better.

 

What change needs most is a reason.

 

Evolution happens from better form fit and function. The opposite of the world government is the individual. Governments that deny the individual have only stayed in power through tyranny. Governments of individuals descend into chaos. Balance of individual rights and rule of law must be found, and in our world's history and current state of human social evolution, smaller is better.

 

We need to find peaceful ways to compete and retain peaceful respect. Sports are wonderful for this. We do not need a global army unless there is a global enemy to fight. We need do not need a global police force, we need rule of law and objective respectful justice to be upheld globally through localities.

 

We need to accept pride of region, of ethnicity, or heritage as good things which can be practiced and admired.

 

Centralized organizations abhor diversity. Standardization is more efficient, more just, more fair. Fairness becomes the new primary social goal and is used as a reason to strip those that have to supply those who have not. Rather than leveling opportunity, the leveling is aimed at results, there is no way to make sure that everyone gets the same results for what they do in their life. So individualism is made taboo and conformity is encouraged. Those in power become the opposite of what they want the masses to be, because they need to be powerful to hold onto their power. This breeds either complete loss of the individual self, or resentment that becomes revolution.

 

Government needs to respect the diversity of people, promote individual achievement and insure equal opportunity. And it must protect the rights of the people from the hands of government lest that government find its own path to tyranny was paved with the best intentions.

 

I think we are a very long way from either the imperative need for a world government, or the cultural readiness to sustain one.

 

Bill

[Eclipse Now]

Our social structures have evolved as our needs have changed through time. From tribes and clans to countries and dynasties; there is a process of incremental change tied to inspired leadership and social need. There are experiments along the way of varying effectiveness. We learn, we adjust, we slide back, we step forward, and over time we manage to make things better.

Nicely put, just as the EU has evolved out of the sheer need to stop WW1 and WW2 repeating themselves across Europe.

What change needs most is a reason.

Like Climate Change, peak oil, world standards to save money on everything from power-points and Electric Charging paddles through to chemical pollutants, preventing wars, world health, saving monumental amounts of money by having a global currency, etc.

 

Evolution happens from better form fit and function. The opposite of the world government is the individual. Governments that deny the individual have only stayed in power through tyranny. Governments of individuals descend into chaos. Balance of individual rights and rule of law must be found, and in our world's history and current state of human social evolution, smaller is better.

Nicely put, except for the last jarring sentence. The EU has both Federal standards and yet allows for local counties to do their own thing in some areas like energy production, culture, local town planning decisions, etc....

We need to find peaceful ways to compete and retain peaceful respect.

Which is what this is all about, politically.

 

Sports are wonderful for this.

Yet was Hitler saluted at the Olympic games just before WW2.

 

We do not need a global army unless there is a global enemy to fight.

OK, but what would you call Darfur and Afghanistan and issues in Zimbabwe? The enemy to fight seems to be pockets of warlords that want to remove other's human rights.

 

We need do not need a global police force, we need rule of law and objective respectful justice to be upheld globally through localities.

It might take a global police force to achieve the things we want.

 

We need to accept pride of region, of ethnicity, or heritage as good things which can be practiced and admired.

Have these things been banished in the USA, which was once a collection of different competing colony outposts owned by the French, the English, etc, and is now one Federation? Have these things been abolished by the EU?

 

Centralized organizations abhor diversity.

They can also enable it in certain areas like right to free speech, right to individual religion, right to individual and community culture, etc, and get rid of it where diversity is redundant, such as having a world power-plug standard or electric vehicle charging point, paddle, and battery-swap standard... and even a world driving standard. I'd be willing to learn to drive on the right side of the road. (Only 1/3rd of the world drives on the left).

 

Standardization is more efficient, more just, more fair.

Exactly!

 

Fairness becomes the new primary social goal and is used as a reason to strip those that have to supply those who have not.

The word 'strip' here is highly emotionally charged... why not see it as a social justice issue? You'd feel differently if you were in Darfur with your family being raped and murdered. (Yes, they are emotional issues, which is why I'm so passionate about world governance).

 

Rather than levelling opportunity, the levelling is aimed at results, there is no way to make sure that everyone gets the same results for what they do in their life. So individualism is made taboo and conformity is encouraged. Those in power become the opposite of what they want the masses to be, because they need to be powerful to hold onto their power. This breeds either complete loss of the individual self, or resentment that becomes revolution.

 

This is confusing right wing economic policy and conservative economic speak V liberalism with social 'conformity', when actually all we are talking about is world-wide 'basic' democratic guarantees.

 

EG: Has this happened in the USA, or EU?

Government needs to respect the diversity of people, promote individual achievement and insure equal opportunity.

Agreed... so how is leaving Darfur and Somalia in the current state ensuring equal opportunity, I missed that bit?

 

And it must protect the rights of the people from the hands of government lest that government find its own path to tyranny was paved with the best intentions.

What kind of "hands" of government did you have in mind? Can you demonstrate this in a more concrete manner from the example of the EU, because I'm basically arguing that the EU go global.

 

I think we are a very long way from either the imperative need for a world government, or the cultural readiness to sustain one.

I think we have a demonstrated model to adopt and a global crisis of enormous magnitude demanding that model be applied!

 

We have an emergency requiring global governance in climate, energy security, freshwater supply, forestry, biodiversity, marginalisation and poverty leading to terrorism, terrible illiteracy amongst the poor, oh, and the little detail that 1 billion people going to bed hungry each night!

 

How are their rights 'guaranteed' by the status quo?

[HydrogenBond]

Although a world government might seem useful in theory, I can't see an even larger wasteful entity, added on top of the many already bloated governments of the world. Picture a top layer of world government, with even more power,than any level of country government, with the authority to tax and spend anytime they want. Who would buy the world debt if the world government is creating it?

 

In the US, income taxes were not part of the original constitution. But once those in power got the spend and tax fever, they found a way to create such a tax. A world government could be set up with a limited taxation. But once they get power and that intoxicating spending fever, they will find a way to increase taxes. Like a drug addict, out of control, they will want more and more. Before long they are borrowing against the future and your children's children are in a hole they may never get out of.

 

In the US, the top 10% wage earner pay 90% of the taxes, more or less. With a world government, this could mean the top 10% countries might need to pay 90% of the taxes. That would be fine, if they dissolved their own governments. But they won't. They will need to tax even more, since they just lost a lot of revenue, to the world government. That means we may need to tax the remaining 90% of the population, enough to make up the difference. You can't keep skimming off the top or you might ruin the economy. It is a matter of time until a world war is needed to boot the powerful world government out of power, or else major counties will begin to collapse.

 

To preempt this inevitable world war backlash, before the world government bankrupts the world, the world government will need to remove military responsibilities from the countries. With taxes slowly getting higher, but not critical yet, using the hope of world peace, this may seem like a good way to cut costs at the country level, to avoid excessive tax burdens. Then when the cows do come in, there is nobody left strong enough to stop the downward spiral, by stopping the bloated world government.

 

There will then be the need for a world wide police action, as leadership paranoia sets in, due to the worldwide unrest. But freedom will not go quietly into the night. The underground will grow, across the world, and slowly turn the tide. When the beast has been overcome, there is a sense of world community, forged by the common fight for liberty. A new type of world government is set up, but not like before. It is a servant to the people and never again its master.

 

That would make a good movie.

[Eclipse Now]

Nice sci-fi story, and if well written I might even buy and read it. But not fact, just your opinion. Other experts can visualise a more efficient style of government, with far greater rewards for all of humanity.

 

I repeat the issues of global crisis requiring global action that I think is best met by a democratically accountable global government (as we see the beginnings of in the EU).

 

We have an emergency requiring global governance in climate, energy security, freshwater supply, forestry, biodiversity, marginalisation and poverty leading to terrorism, terrible illiteracy amongst the poor, oh, and the little detail that 1 billion people going to bed hungry each night!

 

How are their rights 'guaranteed' by the status quo?

[Eclipse Now]

Hey HydrogenBond,

another thought... your argument about the top 10% of wealthy nations ignores the undeveloped potential in India, China, and Africa. All those people added to a productive workforce....I imagine them one day maybe paying more of the global government tax than you or I.

[TheBigDog]

Nicely put, just as the EU has evolved out of the sheer need to stop WW1 and WW2 repeating themselves across Europe.

 

Like Climate Change, peak oil, world standards to save money on everything from power-points and Electric Charging paddles through to chemical pollutants, preventing wars, world health, saving monumental amounts of money by having a global currency, etc.

 

 

Nicely put, except for the last jarring sentence. The EU has both Federal standards and yet allows for local counties to do their own thing in some areas like energy production, culture, local town planning decisions, etc....

 

Which is what this is all about, politically.

 

 

Yet was Hitler saluted at the Olympic games just before WW2.

 

 

OK, but what would you call Darfur and Afghanistan and issues in Zimbabwe? The enemy to fight seems to be pockets of warlords that want to remove other's human rights.

 

 

It might take a global police force to achieve the things we want.

 

 

Have these things been banished in the USA, which was once a collection of different competing colony outposts owned by the French, the English, etc, and is now one Federation? Have these things been abolished by the EU?

 

 

They can also enable it in certain areas like right to free speech, right to individual religion, right to individual and community culture, etc, and get rid of it where diversity is redundant, such as having a world power-plug standard or electric vehicle charging point, paddle, and battery-swap standard... and even a world driving standard. I'd be willing to learn to drive on the right side of the road. (Only 1/3rd of the world drives on the left).

 

 

Exactly!

 

 

The word 'strip' here is highly emotionally charged... why not see it as a social justice issue? You'd feel differently if you were in Darfur with your family being raped and murdered. (Yes, they are emotional issues, which is why I'm so passionate about world governance).

 

 

 

This is confusing right wing economic policy and conservative economic speak V liberalism with social 'conformity', when actually all we are talking about is world-wide 'basic' democratic guarantees.

 

EG: Has this happened in the USA, or EU?

 

Agreed... so how is leaving Darfur and Somalia in the current state ensuring equal opportunity, I missed that bit?

 

 

What kind of "hands" of government did you have in mind? Can you demonstrate this in a more concrete manner from the example of the EU, because I'm basically arguing that the EU go global.

 

 

I think we have a demonstrated model to adopt and a global crisis of enormous magnitude demanding that model be applied!

 

We have an emergency requiring global governance in climate, energy security, freshwater supply, forestry, biodiversity, marginalisation and poverty leading to terrorism, terrible illiteracy amongst the poor, oh, and the little detail that 1 billion people going to bed hungry each night!

 

How are their rights 'guaranteed' by the status quo?

Yesterday was my son Bryan's birthday. His brother John made dinner for him, lasagna. Bryan looked at the slice on his plate, pulled at it with his fork, put some sauce on the tip of one tine on his fork and tasted it. Tasted a small bit of pasta as dry as he could get it. Licked, but did not bite a bit of meat. Pushed the layers open and saw "green stuff". Then started wailing that he didn't like the lasagna and refused to eat it. He left the table with tears in his eyes upset at the terrible lasagna and his ruined birthday.

 

I joked with him that maybe he should have broken it down into its base elements. A small pile of carbon. Another of hydrogen. Another of oxygen. And other little piles of all the stuff lasagna is made of. OR he could eat the lasagna with the blend of flavors and textures and enjoy it as it was meant to be served.

 

What you did to my post is what Bryan did to the lasagna. I wrote eight paragraphs. Three of them simple single sentences. You broke it into slices for fifteen separate replies. And in doing so have completely lost the flavor and meaning of what I wrote.

 

I had Bryan come back to the table, and I cut his piece of lasagna in two and told him he had to pick one. He did and I cut off a fork full with all the layers represented and told him he had to start with that bite. He grudgingly did. And in about five minutes he had finished the whole plate and even admitted that it was good.

 

I would challenge you to respond to the full flavor and texture of my post rather than the individual ingredients of my complete thoughts.

 

Bill

[modest]

In my opinion the only salvation for civilization and the human race lies in the creation of a world government, with security of nations founded upon law. As long as sovereign states continue to have separate armaments and armament secrets, new world wars will be inevitable.”

 

I'm sorry all. I know this to be a true quote from Albert Einstein, but I can't show this to be true... unless you take Wikiquotes as enough evidence.

 

The quote appears accurate.

 

I found two published sources,

 

Einstein and Oppenheimer: the meaning of genius, By Silvan S. Schweber, Page 71

 

and 'Subtle is the lord...': the science and the life of Albert Einstein, By Abraham Pais, Page 474

 

I can't find an online link to the second, but it is a very trusted and detailed biography that gives Sep. 1945 as the date of the quote. It also describes on page 301 that Einstein wrote a letter to the UN general assembly advocating a world government in 1947. It looks like that's available here,

 

To the General Assembly of the United Nations by Albert Einstein

 

~modest

[Boerseun]

Whether Albert Einstein said it or not is immaterial. Great Scientist doth not necessarily Great Politician make. It's kinda like asking Bono his opinion on matters African. Very passionate, but he knows absolutely bugger-all about politics, and however gifted musically he might be, his solutions to African problems will be at best very naive, although very enthusiastically presented.

 

But coming back to the issue of World Governance.

 

With loads of sovereign states, you get World Wars. With a single World Government, you'll get a Civil War to End All Civil Wars. Please explain the difference to me.

 

Bitching about 10% of the population having to pay 90% of the taxes, is illogical. It's a pure and simple result of capitalism, where the means to production is in the control of the few (classic 19th century terminology), and that few will earn the most and hence pay the most taxes. Badaboom badabing. You simply cannot have capitalism and not have a wage gap, an income gap, unequal income, unequal wealth distribution, etc. The one follows from the other. Put another way, capitalism is critically dependent on the existence of poverty in order to define wealth. Scary thought, innit? I challenge you to prove the last sentence wrong. As long as there is capitalism in the world, there will be poverty. The poor, however, must have the same chance of escaping poverty and become one of the few who pay 90% of the taxes, if he or she is so inclined, talented, willed, or what have you. There should be no limits on reaching your goals, but the moment you wipe out poverty you remove that which defines wealth and capitalism will come crumbling down into a big-*** pile of socialism which needs a huge tax base (and a certain level of voter sophistication) to maintain.

 

A world government assumes that all countries have the same outlook in many areas. Consider how difficult it is to join the EU: Your currency must trade in a certain band, your interest rates must be in a certain band, inflation must not be higher than x and not lower than y, etc., etc. Sounds simple, but all those variables are bitches to achieve simultaneously. And if you don't achieve it, integration into the union will be a chaotic affair, at best. If all countries were to agree to align their economies in order to join in such a world-wide analogy of the EU, I reckon it will take more than two- to three hundred years just to get the variables straight. It took Europe close on fifty years to get to the point where it is now, and only on economic grounds - they started out as a economic unit to ease the trade in coal.

 

So - however pie-in-the-sky a World Government might be, I don't see it as a negative prospect in the conspiracy-theory illuminati one-world-government satan-is-coming-and-boy-is-he-pissed light, I see it merely as very, very far off in the future, at best, and virtually indiscernible from what you see around you currently.

 

Consider: Countries have tied themselves to the Geneva Convention many years ago. This convention spells out how to treat prisoners of war, how warfare is to be conducted, what type of ammunition you're allowed to use, even the 7.62mm round on which all modern assault rifles are based is defined in the Geneva Convention. So why, if all countries are sovereign, do they care about something imposed upon them from above? Where from above? From whom? Oh yes - by the fact that other countries have signed the same document. The consensus of countries who signed the document gives it weight. You get, of course, idiots like the US of A who's interpretation of the Geneva Convention is flexible at best, but this might be seen in the light of a rebel province who insist on allowing smoking in public places even though it has been banned in the rest of the known universe.

 

The signing of things like the Geneva convention and the Kyoto protocol are the first tentative steps in the formation of a World Government. In both cases the US of A don't care a hoot about it. So it might just be a case of that world government being every country on the planet minus the US. It will be US against THEM, apparently.

 

Taking it a bit further, universal standardization of, amongst others, weights and measures (kilograms and meters - the US, of course, using pounds and inches, funnily enough), electricity supply (220V 50A - the US, I think, is on 110V), traffic signs and rules, etc. is already pointing in that direction. But I reckon if they were to impose a World Government on you tomorrow, you will not notice one single whit of a difference. Except more people in the rich areas and less people in the poor areas as dropped borders eases economic migration. Eventually Ethiopia will be void of people - they will all live in New York. And so the telecommuting rich will invade empty and void Ethiopia with their 4x4's, cellphones, laptops and cheeseburgers, and the building industry will boom as they build brand-new housing developments and all the poor Ethiopians will move back because there's lots of work in the construction industry in Ethiopia all of a sudden and then the rich will realize that Ethiopia is not void of people any more and they will sell up and move back to Kentucky or wherever the hell they came from and there will be a massive oversupply of expensive mansions in Ethiopia which the newly-returned natives can't afford on builder's wages and they will stand empty for a while as the housing market crash until they are eventually stripped for building material for random squatter shacks all over the outskirts of Addis Abeba and the yet-again-poor will decide to up sticks and leave and go to New York or London where they can find work at least and ten years down the line an enterprising New York housing developer sees all the empty land in Ethiopia and decide he's gonna start a housing development and sell it to the Yanks (who are being overrun by Ethiopians as it is) who can move in and telecommute to work and the cycle starts again.

 

The only way to unite the planet in such a way as to:

a) Actually require a world government

B) Making a world government even remotely possible on the short term

is to declare Venus an enemy planet. There simply is no other way.

[modest]

I apologize,

...I found two published sources,

 

Einstein and Oppenheimer: the meaning of genius, By Silvan S. Schweber, Page 71

Eclipse Now already gave this source in post 7. It seems I was just beating a long-dead horse—sorry.

 

~modest

[Eclipse Now]

Put another way, capitalism is critically dependent on the existence of poverty in order to define wealth. Scary thought, innit? I challenge you to prove the last sentence wrong. As long as there is capitalism in the world, there will be poverty.

 

How many American's starved to death last month?

[SamSpeedo]

Einstein may have been a genius on physics, but after he helped invent the N-bomb, guilt drove him around the bend.

[Chacmool]

Einstein may have been a genius on physics, but after he helped invent the N-bomb, guilt drove him around the bend.

Really? What is your source for this assertion?

[SamSpeedo]

Really? What is your source for this assertion?

 

I can not find the story now, about Einstein putting his hat in his pocket and saying his hair has been wet before and asking where is my house?. I with draw that claim.

[BrianG]

If Einstein was right about a world government, was he also right about Zionism and his support for the state of Israel?

 

Albert Einstein - About Zionism

 

I mean, supporting the formation of a new nation kind of flies in the face of a new world order with a single world government, don'tcha think?

[Eclipse Now]

I would challenge you to respond to the full flavor and texture of my post rather than the individual ingredients of my complete thoughts.

Bill

 

I would challenge you to write more concisely, and mean what you say as you say it, rather than have to tell long stories about kids eating habits and challenging other forum members to go running after the 'flavour' of your thoughts, whatever that means.

 

Seriously, if you object to the way I have responded to your ideas and think I've mischaracterized or misunderstood your argument, just point out where. EG: If I've dumbed down something you said in my responses, please reply with an "Of course I agree with that! What I was trying to point out was..."

 

Otherwise, I'm not going hunting for 'flavours'. :Glasses: