Is a world government desirable?

This resource is a wikidebate, a collaborative effort to gather and organize all arguments on a given issue. It is a tool of argument analysis or pro-and-con analysis. This is not a place to defend your preferred points of view, but original arguments are allowed and welcome. See the Wikidebate guidelines for more.

Subject classification: this is a political resource.

A world government, or global government, is the concept of a single political authority for all humanity. Its feasibility and institutional framework are uncertain, but is it even desirable? Is it the way to lasting peace and global solutions? Or would it lead to a dystopian nightmare?

A world government is desirable

Pro

• Pro A world government would allow us to deal with problems that are global in nature, such as global warming, climate change, ocean and air pollution, pandemics and others.
  • Objection There're other ways to deal with such problems that don't require a world government, such as international treatises, free-market, activism, etc.
    • Objection The solutions above have, so far, failed to produce sufficient results.
• Pro More effective coping with climate, pollution and pandemics.
• Pro World peace.
  • Objection In exchange for totalitarian government? That's a rather optimistic presumption.
    • Objection A totalitarian government isn't necessary
• Pro No armies (only police), no weapons of mass destruction (= economic bonus).
  • Objection How would a global authority enforce compliance with whatever policies and laws they intend to impose upon a local population that decides they'd rather do things their way, without harming anyone else? If the answer is "the police", then what makes them any different from a standing army in that case? If compliance is voluntary, then why can't most of these other objectives be accomplished without submitting to a "world government" in addition to such constraints?
• Pro Free movement of people (no entry permits).
• Pro Free circulation of goods (no border tax).
• Pro Rational network of transport (like trans-continental highways and railways).
• Pro World football superleague above national leagues.

Con

• Con A world government would make a world dictatorship possible.
  • Objection A world government would incorporate every political mechanism known to make such dictatorships virtually impossible.
  • Objection An unpopular world government would eventually fall.
  • Objection World dictatorships are possible even without a world government, as has been suggested multiple times by near-global empires such as the British.
    • Objection Even if world dictatorships are possible without world governments, they are more likely when the whole world has one government.
• Con A world government is not feasible so we should not pursue or even desire it.
  • Objection Why is it not feasible?
  • Objection The UN becoming world government is unfeasible.
  • Objection World government established in the traditional (imperial) way is feasible and probable, though perhaps not yet foreseeable.
• Con Independence and self-determination are impossible if the same government is imposed upon all of humanity.
• Con It depends a lot on the shape of the world government such as the autonomy of its parts and its decision-making methods and so on. One can't definitively say any world government is desirable or to be rejected at any time. Things may be a lot different in 10,000 years or the United Nations for example may be considered by some to already be such or to be such if it had more authority or enforcement capacities.

See also

• Is democracy the best form of governance?
• Is capitalism sustainable?

External links

• Wikipedia:World government
• World government in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The big idea: is world government possible?
• It is time to consider the advantages of a world federal government