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Posted

In the old days, the furthest you could instantly communicate depended solely on how loud your voice is, and how hard you could shout. 'Government' was effected by the radius of quick communication, and small tribes was the result. With the advent of agriculture, this expanded into 'city-states', and with literacy (where written orders could by carried by runners) resulted in relatively big kingdoms. Technology reached its peak (for the time) with the Roman Empire, and literacy, coupled with speedy communication (for the time - they employed fleets of galleys in the Med to uphold the empire) enabled the Romans to dominate.

 

There seem to be a correlation in the size of sovereign states/nations to the distance that communication is possible in order to preserve the unity and the loyalty of the subjects.

 

We have had telegraphs and telephones now for more than a century. Wireless communication in the form of radio and television, even less. But true wireless, effortless communication is something only about 10 to 15 years old. The global cellphone network consists out of two billion individual users, out of a population of six billion. One third of the global population are immediately reachable by anybody from virtually anywhere. The internet has enabled discussion forums such as these where nationality has no bearing on the free expression of ideas and the proliferation of new concepts. This is all new. I can now sit in my home in South Africa and have a more detailed, immediate discussion with somebody in Washington DC than was possible for two people in that city seperated only by a few street blocks only a few decades ago.

 

If the size of what we understand as a 'sovereign unit', be it a kingdom, a State, a democracy, a theocracy or any other form of 'united big tribe' is indeed effected by our capacity for communication, would eventual 'World Government' be inevitable?

 

Europe has formed a Union, monetarily. The political union will take a bit longer, but the steps are being taken, and actively worked towards. Asia have expressed its intention of monetary union in the next decade. The desire for North American unity is expressed openly on quite a few serious-minded web sites, and NAFTA already indicates the beginnings of economic unity. The SADEC countries have officially unveiled their plans of having a single curreny by 2020. Economic unity is simply the first steps towards political unity - I mean, how can you seriously disagree with your neighbour militarily if you share the same currency and markets? You will shoot yourself in the foot to attack your neighbour.

 

So - what we are seeing today, is (in my mind) simply the result of increased communication. The movement of products and the distribution of manufacturing facilities have made border control of consumer goods largely superfluous - there is one global manufacturing capacity in one global market. There will obviously be local variations.

 

But with that being the case, will the European Union stop after the whole of Europe has been joined politically? Or will it gain momentum? Will the desire for union in North America simply stop after Canada joined the union, or will it gain momentum? SADEC, which exists for the union of countries in Southern Africa, will face the same question once the union hits the equator. Will they keep on expanding, until SADEC meets up with the EU border? And what will happen then?

 

Okay - I digress. With the incredible advances in communication, would eventual World Government be inevitable? And would this necessarily be a bad thing?

Posted

Okay - I digress. With the incredible advances in communication, would eventual World Government be inevitable? And would this necessarily be a bad thing?

 

Nothing wrong with a little digression.;) But I digress.:shrug: With the advance of instant communications networks, a One World Government is possible but not not inevitable. It may never form, or if it does it may fail if the communication network fails. Furthermore, the communication is but an adjunct to the ability to move people & material quickly, whether to civil aid or enforcement actions.

Plato laid out well enough a plan in his Republic which is in most respects fair & logical. In general I think no, having a one world government is not necessarily a bad thing. What is hell, is implementing it.:hyper: :eek2:

Posted

The main stumbling blocks to world government are nationalism, a single currency, language, and religion. In Europe the Catholic Church is driving the EU where Europe has solved the currency issue and perhaps even nationalism. It appears it will be difficult to continue this plan worldwide. Nationalism and religion likely would be difficult to merge together. In the US there is a push to Christianize the country by some. I have doubts world government could succede.

Posted

World Government, if, as and when it becomes feasibile, will be very different from the forms of national governments we all are familiar with. Perhaps it would be an evolution of the concept of United Nations!

Posted

Interesting replies...

 

But keep in mind, Europe has internal issues, but unity in any form there was completely unthinkable only 60-70 years ago.

 

I'm not saying that unity to the extent that the individual states in the US are united will happen anywhere in the World anytime soon, but in another 50 years? A hundred? As our communication becomes more advanced and refined, and a new generation grows up where a world without instant communication is unthinkable, would they still hold the same loyalties to national borders that the previous generations had? When they take over the reigns of power? I think individual countries will join monetary unions, defense pacts, common fronts, free trade areas, etc., until the difference between countries will be virtually the same as the differences between the individual states in the US - in Texas you have the death penalty, in New York you don't. But there's no border control or economic barriers between them. There are Texans and Yankees, for sure - but they are both citizens of the United States. By the same token, we would end up as South Africans and Australians and Germans and Rwandans, but we would all be Citizens of Earth, with common rights guaranteed by the World Government on which no individual state can trample.

 

In the SADEC region, there's no economic barriers any more. There's no visa requirements for cross-border movement, only a passport, with motions in place to remove even this basic requirement. There's a common Defense agreement, to which 90% of the SADEC countries have subscribed to. The difference between the SADEC setup and the US' setup is becoming more and more vague. And what 'sovereignty' the constituent SADEC countries have left, are subtle nuances in foreign policy (for which they still are individually responsible) and internal economic factors (like interest rates etc., which are actively being converged to a certain band to facilitate the planned common currency. My question is - this world-wide trend of converging and merging on an economic level, creating ever bigger and better economic blocks, won't this eventually end up in Global Unity? And why would this necesarrily be a Bad Thing?

 

What I see (and no, not in the next 50 years, probably at least a hundred) would be a situation where the individual states in such a global unity would be like local "Police Stations", enforcing the law through the court system, etc. - but there will be a Bigger State over them, running the World. For instance, if there would be a war for any specific reason, the World Government would sort it out in the same way as the United States government would sort out a riot in Los Angeles, say.

 

This 'idea' is much broader in scope than the League of Nations or the United Nations ever was, seeing as both the League and the UN have been designed specifically not to tamper with any individual country's sovereignty. That's why the UN has absolutely zero teeth.

 

But would advanced communication like we have not increase the trend? Maybe this is just the natural end result of what is called "Globalization"?

Posted
This 'idea' is much broader in scope than the League of Nations or the United Nations ever was, seeing as both the League and the UN have been designed specifically not to tamper with any individual country's sovereignty. That's why the UN has absolutely zero teeth.

 

But would advanced communication like we have not increase the trend? Maybe this is just the natural end result of what is called "Globalization"?

 

Agree, but one must keep in mind a basic human trait, that is to work towards more personal power. A Government that is far off may not gratify every body's greed for more power!

 

There is a thought that occured to me a few decades ago. According to this thought people in future will not be delimited in the sense of geographical territories, instead they will be governed by congolmerates on several MNC's.

A MNC has a declared charter, that is to work towards more power and influence; but an employee of a MNC has rights very different from that of a citizen.

 

What do you say Boerseun

Posted

I believe religion itself makes a single, unified world government impossible. There are too many people that only believe in a theocracy based on their own faith...

Posted

I dunno :hammer:

 

Won't it be reasonable to expect 'countries' wanting theocracies to then live in a kind of self-imposed seclusion from the rest of the world, kinda like the Amish? They live the way they want to, but they are still American citizens...

Posted
Won't it be reasonable to expect...

Expect the religious to be reasonable? I won't hold my breath. Religion also continues to be one of the leading causes for war. I don't think there will ever be world peace as long as there is religion and there won't be a unified government until there is world peace.

Posted
Will they keep on expanding, until SADEC meets up with the EU border? And what will happen then?

 

What do you mean "then?" Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania.

 

There are too many difference for a "one world" government to succeed - at least as long as there aren't MORE differences with somebody else!

 

Could we get over our religious and racial differences? Sure - if we met six headed cockroaches from Epsilon Eridani who worship the Great Eggmother LaKrush!

 

It sounds a little Star Treky, but I think the that the increased "unity" among the worlds people while due to communication, as you suggest, is just the boundaries of who we are willing to accept as a member of the tribe expanding.

 

Thus, American's are willing to accept Canadians as members of the tribe, and African-Americans who were born here. But Mexicans? I don't know... And Muslims? NO WAY - they're TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

 

In other words, we'll all stop fighting each other when there is something less like us to fight.

 

TFS

Posted
I dunno :ip:

 

Won't it be reasonable to expect 'countries' wanting theocracies to then live in a kind of self-imposed seclusion from the rest of the world, kinda like the Amish? They live the way they want to, but they are still American citizens...

 

Uhmmmm....no.:) At least if history is any judge of religions. The imposing is their right they say, given by authority of only-special-people-see-me-ghosties & the imposition is on others not themselves. As harmless as the Amish appear to the world, what about their children when they have a critical accident & instead of an ambulence they gotta wait to hitch up the horse & wagon?

 

I propose a world government with a division of powers between 4 bodies. An executive body composed of 6 prime-ministers, a legislative body, a judicial body, and the body of citizens. We can hash out the details as soon as my custom tailored prime-ministers robe gets here.:shrug:

Posted

I am not proposing that anything 'reasonable' can be expected when discussing anything with anybody with a religious bent. I am simply saying what would be reasonable in the sense of history panning out - however unpredictable that might be.

 

Whatever the differences (real or imagined) might be between any two countries, I would like to remind you that any one country, say, the UK or the US, has more diversity inside its national borders, between groups of people that are Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Bhuddists, Capitalists, Communists, Democrats, Republicans, Revolutionaries, Conservatives, etc., all with the same citizenship. They are all members of one country. And they would battle each other on national platforms, in debate, or even through planting bombs or terrorism, underground illegal activity, you name it. But they confront each other through all these means (legal as well as illegal) because they simply don't agree on ideology - not because they're citizens of another country. The argument posted above about the world not being able to unite because of differences in religion and politics is insufficient. These kinds of ideological and theological friction exist on a big scale within the same national borders of almost all countries in the world already.

Posted
I am not proposing that anything 'reasonable' can be expected when discussing anything with anybody with a religious bent. I am simply saying what would be reasonable in the sense of history panning out - however unpredictable that might be.

 

So you mean by 'reasonable' something along the lines of an ideal? That is to say that as governments go - and have gone - that the ideal form is singular for the world?

If the ideologies remain as you say in regions or religions or what-have-you, what benefit(s) do you see as ideal under a single world government? Strictly economical? That wars & differences in ideology will wither & wilt when people begin to see themselves as citizens of Earth?

Guess that's enough questions for now. :)

Posted
So you mean by 'reasonable' something along the lines of an ideal? That is to say that as governments go - and have gone - that the ideal form is singular for the world?

No, Turtle. That is not what I mean with 'reasonable'. What I mean, if you read my first post, is that the initial form of 'government' was the tribe, and its physical area (national border) was only as big as what the tribe could control - through limitations of communication and travel. As time went by, and technology and communication became more advanced, the area over which any 'tribe' could project its power became bigger, and ever bigger 'nations' appeared. It is reasonable to expect this trend to continue, not idealistic in any sense. Our current national borders were drawn up before the appearance of instant mass communication like the internet and cellphones. Any citizen of Europe would have scoffed at the idea of unity only fifty/sixty years ago. Would it be reasonable, then, to assume that as far as political development goes, we have 'reached the end of history'?

If the ideologies remain as you say in regions or religions or what-have-you, what benefit(s) do you see as ideal under a single world government? Strictly economical? That wars & differences in ideology will wither & wilt when people begin to see themselves as citizens of Earth?

Guess that's enough questions for now. :)

Whether I see any benefits to this possible unification or not is immaterial. I think you're missing my point here.

I can ramble off hundreds of possible benefits to such a single World Government, but I can also see plenty of disadvantages. But that's not what this thread is about.

Posted

I don't know that unification of all world governments would be a good thing. Think of a government as a corporation - competition is good for everybody. If there was one world governement, it would be difficult for there to become new ideas, new thoughts. Independence, and smaller, versitile governments can function better in many ways, anyway.

Posted
Think of a government as a corporation - competition is good for everybody. If there was one world governement, it would be difficult for there to become new ideas, new thoughts. Independence, and smaller, versitile governments can function better in many ways, anyway.

I think we already have this... Somebody mentioned it to me, I think, in a bar a few years back. They called... wait, I think it was .... Google, or maybe Wal-Mart? :)

 

 

Hypography Thread: Globalization

 

http://hypography.com/forums/computer-science/5518-google-government.html

 

http://hypography.com/forums/social-sciences/5330-google-censors-google-china.html

Posted

Excellent thread Mullet

 

I think that the need for cooperative wide scale engineering will be the catalyst for bonding nations into greater nation states. I saw a fascinating program about Atlantropa came to me last week. It was a plan by a German architect to dam the straights of Gibraltar and pump out the Mediterranean Sea. There would also have been some large dams made on the African continent to create the three largest lakes in the world. All of this generate millions of megawatts of electricity and make new land for settlement and farming. It was supposed to take 150 years to complete the project. To undertake such a venture would require the participation of what is now many countries, and may only be possible under a single government leadership.

 

I do not forsee the US participating in any venture that gives up any of her soverenty. I could see the US eventually adding more states.

 

I can see other countries combining forces similar to the EU in order to better compete with the US on the world market. I can see a Latin American Union, with a standard currency and free trade and travel. I could see similar ventures in the far east. The Middle East already has OPEC, although it is not what it used to be. What you end up with are regional super-governments. They are not hurting for natural resources because they are so huge. They all compete for the world market, and competition continues to drive progress.

 

Bill

 

On a separate note, I am not familiar with what trade between US, Canada and Mexico was like before NAFTA, but I do know about how it is now. It is not exaclty the free trade that you might imagine. People are not allowed to commute over the border like people do in Europe. When I worked in Canada I had to prove that I was not taking a job away from a Canadian and have a work permit stapled to my Passport for crossing the border. My company has facilities in Canada. We had to form a Candian entitiy of the company in order to do that. And we cannot transfer stock to our Canadian facilities like we do between us facilities. We have to sell it to ourselves with a minimum profit when it crosses the border. So when we transfer material to the CN distribution centers from a US plant we take an artificial loss on the material just to cross the border. And if we discontinue a product in CN and want to move it back to the US network, we have to sell it to ourselves at a minimum profit again. So at that point we cannot even sell the material at a profit anymore. This is not to mention the amount of paperwork NAFTA requires for crossing the border, and this is with the use of a border agent for smoothing the process. And the last thing I can't help but wonder about is, if NAFTA made life so much nicer in Mexico for all the jobs that allegedly moved down there, why are there more people than ever coming to the US for work?

 

My digression :)

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