Everyone seems to be pretty happy with a future “world government,” but one leader or council ruling the entire world sounds awful to me. The closest thing we have to that is the UN, which is rife with corruption and is run mostly on US money. Who wants a uniform, politically-correct, two-dimensional world anyways? And no more wars? Yeah right. Ideologies will always clash, and that, I believe, is a good thing in some ways. Besides, wars keep down human population (jokes, jokes, don’t worry). Seriously though, I just can’t seem to embrace the idea of a unified global governing body.
On to the question: “Should powerful countries look after the interests of less-powerful countries? In other words, is there any particular obligation to others associated with being a powerful country?”
This is pretty similar to what I blogged about in my previous post, and I’m taking the (apparently unpopular) side that no, powerful countries do not have any particular obligation towards other, less-powerful ones.
Before everyone gets their knickers in a twist let me clarify: I do not feel that it is a government’s responsibility (government, specifically- as I mentioned before, there are many private humanitarian organizations) to be providing unrequited assistance to other nations.
This doesn’t necessarily mean powerful nations should turn a blind eye to the needy ones. Nations and their governments should work to advance their own interests, and sometimes that involves helping out a weaker one. The more developed and modernized nations become, the more active they can be in the global market and that is beneficial to all parties involved (usually). So if a powerful nation (Nation A) sees a fledgling nation (Nation B) in need of aid, it would often be in Nation A’s best interests to provide Nation B with economic or material assistance. Perhaps Nation B would become an ally that could be of use to Nation A in the future. Also, in the event of a large-scale national disaster, of course a government could provide aid to another in a gesture of goodwill. But these are choices, not obligations.
What I find unnecessary is providing regular, unwarranted aid to Nation B that, to be blunt, serve Nation A no purpose. I think people sometimes get confused between person-to-person aid and government-to-government aid. Yes, people should by all means help their fellow man. But a government exists to aid its own, and has no obligation to anyone but its citizens. Nation A wasn’t selected randomly to be powerful and rich; it worked its way up there. And oftentimes Nation B has a corrupt government which would squander the money or use it for violence- sometimes against its own people.
The most basic example I keep using is American foreign aid. The US could be using the money it regularly pumps into Africa for problems here at home, of which there are many. When we can make the US a sustainable utopia then we can go about having our government provide regular aid to other nations. But this will likely never happen for any wealthy nation. I simply think that we should take care of ourselves and our own before we worry about the rest of the world.
Now there are some tricky situations to which I don’t have a good answer, like Sudan or the Kyoto Treaty. The US may be doing all it can short of military intervention to end the genocide in Darfur, but France, China and Russia continue trading arms with the Sudanese government. Should the US get involved militarily in this region? Regarding the Kyoto Treaty- should the US put economic constraints on itself and let developing nations such as India and (once again) China move right along polluting their way to the top? Should we be more humanitarian or pragmatic in regards to our involvement in such issues?
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3 comments:
First of all, Brave New World = excellent book.
I agree with you, there are far too many interests to be satisfied that a "world government" is out of the question. Economic trade blocs; such as the EU, I believe are the future of world politics. Multiple sovereign states with a common interest, whether it be economic or more militaristic like NATO, create an interdependence that serves as a powerful deterent to conflicts.
I agree that a cultural identity and ability to vote for a leader to represent the thoughts and hopes of a specific nation is vital to the serving the interests of the diverse peoples and mindsets that make up the world.
However, think of the variety of economic agreements and regional interests in the world that are allowing investment to cross borders and open new markets around the world. NAFTA, Mercosur, and ASEAN all represent regional economic interests around the globe and one day could go the direction of the EU, further complicating the already murky field of world politics.
Could you go into a little more detail about your opposition to a world government. I agree that "ideologies will always clash" and I think thats precisely why a world government is necessary: to keep those conflicts contained in a stable framework where change can come via institutional processes (such as elections) rather than via wars. A single government is the logical endpoint of the "interdependence" that Seamus refers to and of international political systems (eg the UN) that stabilize conflict. I think the current international order is bound to fail in part because it fails to accurately represent sources of capacity and authority; arbitrarily defined states are given arbitrarily defined powers. Seamus further argues that a world government would repress "cultural identity", but cultural identity isn't bound up in nation-states. True, some political structures (at every level of government) are incapable of shifting to keep pace with social, technological, and political change, and the destruction of those political structures is necessary. But I think the goal is to achieve, through a kind of natural selection, a state that is flexible enough to survive. In theory, there's something to be said for diversity - but in practice, the wealthiest and most developed states already have similar political systems; preventing uniformity would mean preserving dysfunctional and corrupt states.
I think that in this intricate, hyper-globalized world it is and always will be impossible to carry out such a world government. When the time comes when the world can support a globabl system like that, the world will already be at peace (re: the time won't come).
Conflict resolution through elections? Maybe if the world was comprised solely of first-world nations, but what are the chances Israel and Palestine will sit tight together and just talk it out? How would rebel groups and civil wars be dealt with? Do the Janjaweed militia get a seat at our world government?
You say that the current international order (UN) is inefficient (which I agree with) because "it fails to accurately represent sources of capacity and authority; arbitrarily defined states are given arbitrarily defined powers." What do you suggest instead? Because the nations with the most advanced economies, the best human rights, etc will always be the same handful of "wealthiest and most developed states" that currently facilitate the existence of the UN.
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