What is the content of this essay?
This essay deals with the theory and contraversy of a one world government.
Introduction - problems and benefits of World Government
The idea of world government has not received a good press for many years. It
tends to make most of us think of Stalinist dictators and fascist domination of
the globe. I wish to argue, though, that there is a viable form of democratic
world government which could bring many benefits.
A democratic world government that really worked would lead to a major increase
in the freedom enjoyed by all people on the planet. It would also make more
equitable the international balance of power which currently so heavily favours
the rich developed nations and their citizens at the expense of the much larger
numbers of citizens in the underdeveloped world.
The billion-dollar question is, though, whether there could be a form of
democratic world government which was workable and sustainable, not inefficient
and expensive, and above all which was fair?
Conventional ideas about world government, which typically picture it in the
form of a global parliament passing universal laws in order to create an
identikit legal framework for all world citizens, suffer from three severe
problems. Firstly, the near-impossibility of persuading all of the world's
countries to hand over their sovereignty to a global government of this sort.
Secondly, the risk - of which we are, and must always be, very aware - of
permitting a future global dictatorship of a particularly intransigent kind
(imagine how difficult it would be to dislodge a Hitler if he was in possession
of the kind of absolute power available through such a form of government). And
thirdly, as we see sometimes today in the European Community, the tendency of
such a large-scale government to...