Is global democracy inevitable?
Earth is becoming flat, there are no real borders on the internet. Some global problems would require a global decision making process by global majorities to mitigate, in order to avoid suboptimal outcomes in a prisoners dilemma scenario. These suboptimal outcomes we can see in everyday life. Some examples:
My expectation is therefore the emergence of a global policy making mechanism, leading towards the end of the century to the establishment of a global republican and federal form of government, guaranteeing local decision power to local political entities in the federation according to the subsidiarity principle (what can be decided on local level, has to be decided on local level). This development towards a global democracy is threatened by strong autocratic (tyrannic) forms of local government, most notably Russia and China, but also the whole Arabic world. However in the long term autocratic forms of polities cannot prevail without sustained violence against the own population. They are also contingent on a low level of eduction and always require external threat scenarios, which would become obsolete in a global political entity.
Some even argue a teleological inevitability of the political development of the world towards a world republic
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253440941_Why_a_World_State_Is_Inevitable
Do you agree?
- persistence of tariff regimes resulting in suboptimal overall economic output
- no efficient internalization of external economic effects of e.g. plastic pollution or other forms of environmental pollution
- persistence of the possibility of war between nations, resulting in net loss of human life and happiness potential
- extinction of wildlife species due to inefficient global protection measures
- offloading of dangerous pollution into countries with weak/corrupt governance
My expectation is therefore the emergence of a global policy making mechanism, leading towards the end of the century to the establishment of a global republican and federal form of government, guaranteeing local decision power to local political entities in the federation according to the subsidiarity principle (what can be decided on local level, has to be decided on local level). This development towards a global democracy is threatened by strong autocratic (tyrannic) forms of local government, most notably Russia and China, but also the whole Arabic world. However in the long term autocratic forms of polities cannot prevail without sustained violence against the own population. They are also contingent on a low level of eduction and always require external threat scenarios, which would become obsolete in a global political entity.
Some even argue a teleological inevitability of the political development of the world towards a world republic
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253440941_Why_a_World_State_Is_Inevitable
Do you agree?
Comments (14)
1. Non-democratic states like Russia, but especially China, seem to be taking a dominant position over democratic states. The time of US hegemony is over, and China seems to be gearing up to take its place. As the US weakens, Russia's leverage over the EU will increase. In the long run this will first lead (and already has) to a series of crises as Russia reincorporates former Soviet states. After that, relations will probably normalize but Russia will be the dominant player in EU-Russia relations.
2. Democracy isn't just under threat from external sources. In fact, the bigger threat in both the US and the EU comes from within in the form of corruption. Social engineering, misinformation, propaganda, etc. have all turned the tables on the ?????. I no longer consider the US, the EU and many nations within the EU to actually be democratic. The will of the people is no longer the leading thread in decisionmaking. The leading thread has become the agenda of the elite, and the people are to be manipulated and coerced into accepting it.
I think we should be happy about having even the existing global decision making process we enjoy now. It might be the best we can get. Especially if peace among the great powers endures.
In fact, there are many arguments why huge empires or monopolies in power are bad for many reasons. So would be a singular global decision making process...and the idea that it would solve our problems. And let's not forget that local decision making, independence of communities etc. is the backbone of democracies.
You mean might is right, which is the real principle behind the current political state of the world? I don´t think that is a good basis for decision making at all, especially when the autocratic states become more and more economically powerful. Peace among the powers endures currently basically because NATO still dominates but cannot invade atomic powers. Everybody else can be bullied around.
Independence of communities and local decision making would still be guaranteed in a global democratic federation, just like it is now in the US. But not in a global tyranny employing techology to hold down democracy, and that is the scenario that I am most afraid of.
Don't know if the global society will have democracy or any similar kind of it. But for sure there will be one government and no borders at all. It's inevitable for humanity to go to this direction. It's the only Logical and at some point humanity will get to that. That borders, countries, races and all these idiotic stereotypes, make no sense at all.
They will realize that one random fact, that you had nothing to do with it(to which place your mom and dad fucked as to determine your ethnicity-way of life) isn't accepted to define your whole life! Simply as that. It might take thousands and years more but humanity will get there for sure, one day in my opinion.
Will that society be better? Well I strongly doubt. And how much freedom, people of these days, will have. But it is an inevitable progress.
People believing in conspiracies love to talk for illuminati and their "secret dark" plans for making one global government. And I always remember myself wondering "wow if illuminati exist indeed well they then have a damn logical plan!".
No. I simply mean that there hasn't been a great war between the great powers for a long time. That is one thing to be grateful of.
If there is a conflict between the US and China (or Russia or both), then we will surely miss this time now.
The United State of the World.
hmmm... Don't we have already the UN?
The UN is a covenant between nations, to establish global agreement on topics of global interest, but they are not binding, countries can leave individual agreements any time. It doesn't delegate any real power to the global level, and therefore doesn't resolve the prisoner's dilemma, that in a game of many stakeholders, an individual choice might not yield the best potential global outcome compared with another choice that requires a higher level of trust and goodwill.
And that is a far too limited approach, because it totally ignores the important aspects that bind societies together and that make people feel part of them. Social cohesion, things that makes us feel as a group, a common language, national identity, culture and so on. The popularity of the sovereign nation states isn't just a coincidence, something that just by pure luck has happened. The bigger the state is, likely the more problems there are. Or then it has to be, by necessity, a loose federation.
Quoting TheArchitectOfTheGods
Global democracy? What is global democracy? That the Chinese and the Indians decide what you will pay them? What is so wrong with independence? Have independent states cooperate. Some will make right decisions, some wrong ones.
I appreciate the points you raise. I would answer that identity is not exclusive to one geographical or even linguistic level. Would you say you are not a resident of planet earth? At the same time, you are a resident of your country, your state, your region, your city, your neighborhood. You identify with all of these, all these are identities, stacked on top of each other.
You know what you are not. You are not from the other neighbourhood, the other city, the other state, the other country. But we are all from earth.
In the interest of both peace and economic prosperity, I advertise a global level of identification with our planet earth, our unique home in the universe. No neighbors to compare ourselves to. This takes nothing away from regional and local levels of identification, languages and culture. That is why the olympics are such a powerful symbol of the togetherness of humans on this planet.
We are all humans living on this planet, yet it's not only that.
My wife is Mexican and I friends and in-laws in Mexico. I like them and trust them. They are nice, honest hardworking people. Yet I do not trust Mexican officials like I do Finnish officials. A Finnish policeman or government official won't ask you a bribe. A Mexican will. That trust, social cohesion found here is totally lacking there. In that state organized crime has grown as a cancer to all levels of government. Here it isn't. People might not like the politicians, but they aren't considered thieves. There and in many countries they are. When I try to explain how Mexico is like to Finns I say it would be similar in Finland, if the legal system wouldn't work and criminals could do anything they want with absolute immunity. The small amount of criminals here surely would bring chaos, deep insecurity, distrust and violence when the police would stop to do what it's doing. People can be similar, the societies and the government etc. can be totally different.
Hence perhaps Finns wouldn't be so excited about having Mexican officials or others instead of their present officials. Yet that global federation would be like that and especially feel like that.
Hence better solution is international cooperation among independent countries. That is the pathway to improve things.
Democracy might work if you had an informed and involved electorate but fear and resentment seem to be the major motivations in current democracies and democratic norms are being undermined in several countries as we speak, including the U.S.