objections to world government considered

By David R. Griffin

(Professor Griffin responds to the conventional wisdom that the creation of a global government is both undesirable and impossible.)

Some opponents of the concept of a global government feared that it would lead to world tyranny. Any government nowadays could be dangerous, but would the creation of a global government be more or less dangerous than continuing with the current anarchical lack of order among nation states? Einstein felt that the present system is more dangerous, for besides having the perpetual threat of war, it is more conducive to tyranny.

The objection that a central government would probably lead to tyranny had been raised by those opposed to the plan to create a federal government for the U.S.A.; and yet the framers of the Constitution did well in setting up a form of government that could avoid becoming tyrannical, especially when the Bill of Rights was added to the checks and balances built into the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

Another reason for thinking global government undesirable was that it might conjure up the image of a bureaucratic nightmare. However, global government proponents speak of a strictly limited government whose jurisdiction would deal with matters of common concern to all nations, e.g., planetary ecology, a global economic system, and security from outside attack.

Moreover, only in a federal system of global government can real political and economic decentralization and autonomy be possible.

The main charge was that it is simply impossible to create a global government. Such believers insist that a global society with much more uniformity in terms of beliefs and values than we have today must first occur. Yet the required consensus among the peoples of the world on basic values arguably already exists. Dorothy V. Jones in "The Declaratory Tradition in Modern International Law" lists nine principles that have been widely accepted by the nations of the world. Even if not fully practiced, this is the kind of consensus on values needed for a global democratic government to work.

But isn't this putting the cart before the horse? Recall that people in the states of Virginia and Massachusetts could not have had any reverence for the U.S. Government prior to its existence. Accordingly, loyalty to the world federation must be developed after it has been established. Of course, we'd hope that persons with different religious and philosophical outlooks could reinterpret those traditions in ways that support of world unity – which would be the greatest transformation of human civilization.

It's possible that the poorest countries (left out of most political decisions by the U.N. Security Council and economic policies made by the G-8 nations) might reject the proposal for global government as one more scheme by the rich to exploit them. This could be forestalled by having the plans for global government worked out by representatives from nations all over the world. The global government envisaged would be democratic, having a popularly elected Parliament (similar to that in the E.U.), no nation with veto powers, and no inner circle with permanent membership.

What about the richer nations -- especially the United States -- that had final say in the U.N. Charter? How would they consider a global government that would restrict their right (privilege?) to go to war and commit them to overcoming the huge economic disparity between themselves and the poorest nations? Assuming that the United States would have to take the lead, might it realize that global government is necessary if human civilization is to survive, when faced with international terrorism and the possibility of its gaining a nuclear dimension, and the mounting risk of nuclear proliferation among nations; as well as the population explosion, the accelerating deterioration of the natural environment, including the resulting climate change, and the exhaustion of vital resources -- precursors to resource wars?

Despite some past negative consequences of the American sense of mission, might its positive side be emphasized of saving the world from the multiplicity of dangers by leading the movement toward global government?

Finally, a global government should be more accessible now than in the 18th Century, or after the first World War, or even after World War II, because of technological advances, including in the fields of communication -- especially television (and the Internet) -- and transportation. Modern technology has made a world government technically feasible. But even more so, because of the deleterious effects of some contemporary technology, world government is an indispensable necessity. What now is most needed is to change our inherited way of thinking about international relations.

-- From Toward Genuine Global Governance, edited by Errol Harris & James Yunker (1999). Most recently, while starting to write on global democracy, Professor Griffin, who taught ethics at the Claremont School of Theology, was distracted by the events around the 11th of September 2001. This led to his perceptive book in 2004 entitled The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11.

 

(This article was published in Toward Democratic World Federation Autumn 2005)

 

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