by Harry Windsor

Created on: January 30, 2009

Successive devolution of powers to local communities is both necessary and inevitable as aan eventual result of globalization. National boundaries become irrelevant with nations only being called so due to the greater or lesser sense of national sovereignty that the citizens feel. replacing this will be the sense of solidarity they may feel with immediate neighbours and the long-distance connexions they can make with people all over the world using technology.

The result of this will be a world in which the UN (or an equivalent organization) becomes responsible for international law, trade and parts of economic policy. This will be where the majority of military decisions should take place with force only being deployed as the result of prior discussion and generally to prevent humanitarian crises.

National governments will then dissolve most of their power to local semi-autonomous citizens congresses. Such groups will be responsible for education, health, local infrastructure and security, they will balance their own budgets adhering to a loose Constitution of laws decided by the national government.

The system I have attempted to outline above is obviously a Utopian one but I think it reflects the variety of issues that are important (e.g. environmental ones). Foreign policy should be dealt with, if not exactly a world government, then a democracy of nations type organization. Conversely the issues that most affect individuals are dealt to on a level as close as possible to that citizen - why should your child's school be controlled by the same people who are attempting to solve global crises? It seems much more effective to lead the banal everyday and domestic aspects of democracy to be dealt with by the people as much as possible (people would therefore tend to live in areas where they found like-minded people, i.e. as happens now but being open about this fact and the way it affects society). In the meantime issues that require more complex economic or political knowledge (e.g. global trade, global terrorism, environment etc.) are tackled by people who can produce universal, international laws similar to those in evidence at the UN now. But rather than being ignored by many national governments or terrorist groups if the UN (or global government) had the power to enforce such basic laws then it could actually do so. Furthermore if national government was limited there would be less of the power infrastructure in place that allows entire nations to come under the power of despots and megalomaniacs. If the most power that one could legitimately obtain was a position of leader of a local (and demilitarized) community it would make it harder for people to obtain huge amounts of power legitimately and then convert this into totalitarianism.

In conclusion I believe that a Single World Government would be more concerned with the first two of these words than with the third; more global unity (and harmony if this word can be shorn from any of its flimsy or naive connotations) and less government intervention into the lives of citizens except when these people inflict harm onto others in which case the world as a whole unites to condemn and stop them. This system would value people and reflect their position within the world - that is a global citizen but one only intimately connected to one small part of the world at any time. Hopefully this would promote more interest in the politics around them and more incentive to make sure political is power is used to benefit them and their neighbourhood and not harm it.

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