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| Yes | 21% | 111 votes | Total: 539 votes | |
| No | 79% | 428 votes |
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Add to FavoritesThe key to this debate is in the title. It asks if a single world government is the way forward, not if it is the correct way. Forward is not always correct, it is just forward. When Gatling perfected the rapid fire capability of a hand cranked machine gun, is was not to hunt deer. It made it easier to kill men on the battlefield. Right or wrong it was a move forward in the capabilities of firearms.
We have been slowly moving towards a one world government since the beginning of human agrarian society. As small villages made alliances they became city states, then kingdoms and so on. Today, we have two major branches on the road to this single government. One is the super powers.The now defunct USSR, as well as China and the U.S. use their military, diplomatic and economical influence to control their respective spheres of influence.
It is no secret that items like the Monroe Doctrine were a form of this influence before the one world government was a spoken concept. It made it known that any European interference in the western hemisphere was interference with the U.S. Was it right or wrong? That isn't the point. The point is it was a step toward the single government.
If we go further back, the Roman Empire had a similar philosophy. To them, they were bringing the light to barbarians. In some cases this was the case. In others it wasn't. Either way, as they conquered more and more area, they brought a huge amount of the "known world" under a single government and set of laws.
The other branch on the road I spoke of is the various military, economical, and political alliances that have been formed. If we just leave it to the later half of the 20th century to present, it keeps it much more simple. The spiderweb of alliances that led to both world wars are entities unto themselves that I am not sure anyone past or present truly understands, they were so complicated.
If we look at NATO and its arch enemy of the cold war Warsaw Pact, once again, you take several governments and put them under a (more or less) single leadership. In central and S. America you have the OAS (organization of American States), as well as several similar organizations in southeast Asia and Africa. A single one that seems to be working out well in current times is the European Union. They have their own currency and seem to be taking care of a lot of minor problems "in house" where in the past it could have led to wars.
As far as economical organizations go, a lot of people remember an incident that happened in the 1970s. It was going on when I was born, so I learned it as history as opposed to experiencing it. OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) proved that when they all sat down together, they could bring the world to its knees.
According to some Christian theology a one world government and the single currency that would go with it, will signify the end of times. I will leave that argument up to the religious scholars out there. A single government could do a lot of good in the world. Take the U.S. for example (albeit not a perfect example). When we were colonies each with different laws and currencies their was utter confusion with commerce and everything else. Now you have a central government that issues money and laws. The states and provinces still have their own laws, but they are secondary to the federal laws.
You could put the old USSR to the same argument and it didn't pass the test as well. Between the two it can prove a point. As time goes on, the world becomes a smaller place. I can call Tokyo anytime I want on my cell phone. I am writing this article on the internet so it can be read anywhere on the globe. We are moving closer to a single global community.
Will it be good or bad? That is the question of the modern age. Without the politics and borders, you could stop famines in Africa as easy as we can help drought victims in Kansas. On the other hand George Orwell's 1984 and big brother would have nothing on one single government. There is a historical quote that is relevant. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is a completely true statement.
Look at the world right now. Take out all the other variables, borders, currencies and politics. Just look at language. If you take just two languages into account, English and Mandarin, you have a very large portion of the world connected into two groups. So yes the single world government is moving forward. It is a continuation of the historical time line. Good, or bad, time will tell us the answer to that. Probably sooner rather than later.
Learn more about this author, T. Scott Randolph.
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No
As single world government will not ever come about, for a number of reasons. I have listed what I think are some major factors which would prevent a single world government.
1) Cultural differences - cultural differences would play a huge role in preventing the creation of a single world government. For example, compare the daily life for the average American citizen with that of the average Brazilian, Laotian or Nigerian. Just that alone would make it almost impossible to impose a single government. Take into account religious differences, and a whole can of worms have just been opened. It's true that there are many multi-cultural countries exist all over the world today, but nothing today even compares to the scale of differences that would exist in a single world government.
2) Egos & Sovereignty - nobody wants to be swallowed up by a new or foreign sovereignty. The British don't want to be French. The Canadians don't want to be American. In fact, worldwide struggles like this occur even today. Just look at the Tibetan-Chinese conflict or, to a lesser extent, the move for independence within the province of Quebec. After all this fighting for sovereignty rights, do you really think China would give up her right to rule as she pleases? Can Israel and Iran really be ruled under the same government? Surely if peace has been so fleeting in the Middle East, single rule over the entire region would only prove to exacerbate it.
3) Nationalism - although this is somewhat the same as point 2, this has a different point altogether. Nationalism has proven to be a strong worldwide force. "Nations" generally wish to have their own state, for the purposes of promoting and protecting their cultural heritage, as well as deciding for themselves which laws and policies to enact. Nationalism over the past century has actually led to an increase in the number of nations worldwide. If this trend continues, there will not be a single world government, but quite the opposite in fact; there will be many more, smaller governments.
4) The Fall of Empires - all empires fall. It's been proven time and time again throughout history. Sometimes the empires fall into oblivion, such as with the Greeks and Romans, and sometimes the empires crumble into a much humbler entity, such as with the British empire. Regardless, they all fall. A single world empire would have so many enemies within, it would be impossible to fight them all. No matter how strict and careful the government is to weed out extremist opposition, the state would never be safe.
5) Democratic Problems - representative democracy is the corner stone of the Western governments. That is, the West would refuse to enter an institution without a clear democracy set up. Assuming that the other nations of the world were to agree to a democratic institution demanded by the West, the West would still refuse to join the single government because it would be highly under-represented in government. China alone has 1.3 billion people, while India has almost 1.1 billion people. These two countries alone make up approximately one-third of the world population. These numbers would assure that the Chinese and Indians would rule the state. Would Pakistan really give its sovereignty away to India? Japan to the Chinese?
These 5 problems are just some of the reasons why there will never be a world government. And while we all try to increase the amount of global co-operation, the ineffectiveness of the United Nations, specifically, and other global initiatives more generally, have proven that the World is not ready, nor willing to accept, a world government.
Learn more about this author, Kevin Ascott.
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