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> It seems it doesn't work so well in a globalized economy. It doesn't work because we are essentially at the stage where nations take on the role of the indiv

> It seems it doesn't work so well in a globalized economy. It doesn't work because we are essentially at the stage where nations take on the role of the individuals in the original example. Countries have much to gain by quickly exploiting the resources common to all countries before the others can. This leads to the tragedy of the commons on a global scale. We need world government with real power in order to solve this problem, just as national government has solved it for more local issues.

cmurf 9y ago
Nationalism is in direct conflict with a world government. Even if we take the lightweight version of this in the form of the U.N. - nations do not universally accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Wealthy+industrialized+militarized countries who are U.N. charter and Geneva Convention signatories, violate those agreements when it suits them. The conditions by which nations voluntarily joined the League of Nations (what eventually became the U.N.), and were willing to ceded national sovereignty, was WWI and WWII. All deaths are measured in the millions: just the Axis military deaths was multiple millions, total causalities upwards of 80 million. A world government will take two things, in my opinion: an event that demonstrates such betrayal by national governments, that makes them partly or entirely illegitimate by their very nature; the ensuing catastrophe is not so bad that organizing a world government is rendered impossible.
AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> We need world government with real power in order to solve this problem, just as national government has solved it for more local issues. The problem with world government is that you would need sign on by literally everyone, permanently. As soon as you had a serious disagreement and tried to enforce it against a sufficiently powerful country without their consent, we would have at best the dissolution of the world government and at worst World War III. The American Civil War at world-scale is not a pretty picture. The system we have now works much better than that. When someone is cheating, the countries that don't like it put sanctions on them until they stop. The sanctions aren't severe enough to fight a war over but they cost more than the cost of doing the right thing, which resolves things for all but the most obstinate countries. The problem with climate change seems to be that countries lack the will to actually use those methods. If most of Europe and China got together and signed an agreement to all put sanctions on any country that didn't meet a per-capita carbon emissions target, that would be the end of it. But apparently they don't have the stones to actually do it.
- skummetmaelk 9y ago
  > If most of Europe and China got together and signed an agreement to all put sanctions on any country that didn't meet a per-capita carbon emissions target, that would be the end of it. Which would be the beginning of world government. Agreed upon rules with clear consequences for breaking them. Right now there are consequences for doing what the major players do not like, but the rules are not written down beforehand.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > Which would be the beginning of world government. No it wouldn't, because it isn't a government, it's a relationship between fully independent states. If a federal judge orders an Alabama school superintendent to do something as a matter of federal law, that superintendent is either going to do that thing or be arrested by the feds, and nobody is going to stop them. That's what a government looks like. If the EU tells the US to cut carbon emissions or face sanctions and Donald Trump tells them to piss off, nobody is going to arrest Donald Trump and anybody who tries to is going to be met with force. Europe can then impose the sanctions, and the US can either give in or suffer the ramifications as a country, but at no point is anyone who refuses to comply going to be held personally responsible by an external governing body. Moreover, each government's tools against the others are roughly symmetrical. If the EU wants to put sanctions on the US they can, but the US can just respond in kind. That hurts both of them and they both know it, so (absent corruption) they won't do it unless it's something sufficiently important. Which means you don't get the insane policies like we have in the US where the feds start micromanaging everything just because they can get away with it.

cmurf 9y ago

Nationalism is in direct conflict with a world government. Even if we take the lightweight version of this in the form of the U.N. - nations do not universally accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Wealthy+industrialized+militarized countries who are U.N. charter and Geneva Convention signatories, violate those agreements when it suits them. The conditions by which nations voluntarily joined the League of Nations (what eventually became the U.N.), and were willing to ceded national sovereignty, was WWI and WWII. All deaths are measured in the millions: just the Axis military deaths was multiple millions, total causalities upwards of 80 million. A world government will take two things, in my opinion: an event that demonstrates such betrayal by national governments, that makes them partly or entirely illegitimate by their very nature; the ensuing catastrophe is not so bad that organizing a world government is rendered impossible.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

> We need world government with real power in order to solve this problem, just as national government has solved it for more local issues. The problem with world government is that you would need sign on by literally everyone, permanently. As soon as you had a serious disagreement and tried to enforce it against a sufficiently powerful country without their consent, we would have at best the dissolution of the world government and at worst World War III. The American Civil War at world-scale is not a pretty picture. The system we have now works much better than that. When someone is cheating, the countries that don't like it put sanctions on them until they stop. The sanctions aren't severe enough to fight a war over but they cost more than the cost of doing the right thing, which resolves things for all but the most obstinate countries. The problem with climate change seems to be that countries lack the will to actually use those methods. If most of Europe and China got together and signed an agreement to all put sanctions on any country that didn't meet a per-capita carbon emissions target, that would be the end of it. But apparently they don't have the stones to actually do it.

skummetmaelk 9y ago
> If most of Europe and China got together and signed an agreement to all put sanctions on any country that didn't meet a per-capita carbon emissions target, that would be the end of it. Which would be the beginning of world government. Agreed upon rules with clear consequences for breaking them. Right now there are consequences for doing what the major players do not like, but the rules are not written down beforehand.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > Which would be the beginning of world government. No it wouldn't, because it isn't a government, it's a relationship between fully independent states. If a federal judge orders an Alabama school superintendent to do something as a matter of federal law, that superintendent is either going to do that thing or be arrested by the feds, and nobody is going to stop them. That's what a government looks like. If the EU tells the US to cut carbon emissions or face sanctions and Donald Trump tells them to piss off, nobody is going to arrest Donald Trump and anybody who tries to is going to be met with force. Europe can then impose the sanctions, and the US can either give in or suffer the ramifications as a country, but at no point is anyone who refuses to comply going to be held personally responsible by an external governing body. Moreover, each government's tools against the others are roughly symmetrical. If the EU wants to put sanctions on the US they can, but the US can just respond in kind. That hurts both of them and they both know it, so (absent corruption) they won't do it unless it's something sufficiently important. Which means you don't get the insane policies like we have in the US where the feds start micromanaging everything just because they can get away with it.