A World Unified

[TMA_1]

It seems to me that outsourcing because of cheaper labor and less safety, as well as the globalization of the world trade markets, that more and more nations are unifying, maybe not fully in a form of government, but at least economically we are pretty much living in a globalized economy. Do you guys think that after maybe a 100 years of this, that many western governments will have far less power than they do now? When do you guys predict complete globalization in terms both of economics and government? Sorry for the bad english of this thread, but I think you guys get the idea of what I am saying.

I have also found that some great thinkers and writers follow this ideal of a one world government called global federalism. It is a tiered structure that runs from the entire globe, to national sectors, down to counties and then to towns. It seems like the typical sci fi-like model for a unified world government.

All of this still gives me the creeps though, just not sure of it.

[Caid Ivik]

Globalization is in fact just a synonym for unification. It only depends with what you identify yourself more - with government or ie your economic activity. While the first is purely local, on the second thing you are already a part of worldwide system.

[Faetarius]

At the moment economic unification is looking slightly unlikely because of the protectionism of the western markets, shown in the trade barriers against places like Africa and China

[Dante]

Governments want profit, and companies want ptofit. Profit in trade comes from very close relationships. However, if everyone worked together there would be no competition, and I think competition is imoportant to various economies. So a worldwide union isn't looking particularly likely. Perhaps two or three big unions, but not one.

[Egeides]

Nothing goes ok if pushed too far.

It seems like a matter of balance to me, and each level has things to express thus a part of this balance. Some things are of national level, some otherwise. It is a choice between forming one big (often top-down) link of steel, or a whole bunch of vines tying each other up. We didn't get many Apollo projects and New Deal economies auto-forming from vines, but from leadership yes. It has its drawbacks though, bringing failures among success; but in history, "economically natural" wines as "man-made" steel got their repeated failures (the debate is opened).

But within this idea...

One government, One crash, One dark age. All the eggs in a same basket is no good, as it will crash once we add the "time" variable in the equation. So to which extent do we put eggs in many baskets? Oh and One Ring wouuuuuuuuuu (sorry, Halloween coming)

If it's truly going towards one government, it also means only one thing to take control of and then the rest is stuck within. Many environments means different caracteristics where different things thrive in. No exile/"choice" and only the possibility to work within one given common system might bring specialization for certain things... but block the rest. Perhaps a look at the Roman Empire is pertinent (and unlike cities working with whole bunch of legislations adapted to their means... with potential hassle, divisions and stagnation too).

Separations are useful for other interests than strictly international ones, as each person has interests, each city, each region.... Thus one big (top-down) thing has also lesser knowledge of its parts than the parts themselves while it'll tend to suck needed power; so there is a balance to achieve so that the whole thing gets forward within its de facto global structure. It also means that the top tends to be served more and thus over time wont regenerate as well and will centralize, instead of aiming for area-based advancement. Some might bring here the idea of the need for some competition, new material, etc. to uncentralize, bring regeneration and diminish sclerosis.

When a hiker goes up, he places "steps" which demand him energy, but refrain him from losing even more if he falls. The more at stake and the more risky the climb, the more balance requires energy to be invested in precautions. And so going for some swift structure going all one way might not be the best on the longer term (even though it might lead to more globalism, this being done with technology, time, energy permitting balance to be kept more easily).

Some on FED2k might have the idea of sending a few colonists to Mars too since we're at it, but sadly we're not quite there yet. Eggs are still on Earth.

[Caid Ivik]

Your view requires first definition of government's competences. More is left freely for self-organization, the less would crash in case of major governal crisis. This is perfectly recognized, on (slightly) lesser scale, between USA and former USSR. Constitution of USA is minimalistic, legislative of parties and states is freely set. Then even if there is a weaker president, internal power is untouched. Centralist and totalitarian USSR tried to control all from Moscow, and so we could see how Gorbacov made it desintegrate with his benevolent passivity, with extreme consequences for not only USSR itself, but also its satellites.

[nemafakei]

Whether we like it or not, we are globalised. The actions of Japanese businesses in Brazil affect the people of Kazakhstan. As  Caid said, economically, almost no-one is independent. Sovereignty is little more than an illusion - where it exists, it is often resticted to minor issues. Governments of small countries can be held to ransom by corporations. The only question is whether we want globalised representation - do we want democracy to lag so far behind the markets as to shy entirely from the global stage?

"Governments want profit, and companies want ptofit"

Depends entirely on the structure of the government.

Individuals want profit for themselves, which leads to companies, who have no obligation but to their owners, to work for their owners' profit. But the more democratic a government, the more the government employees must work for the profit of others (by definition). For example, the USSR was much less democratic and ended up being mostly geared towards its political elite. Western 'democracies' have themselves developed a political elite (not really hereditary like previous elites) whose interests are served by government since they're a long way from democracy.

A global government is only going to be feasible and effective if democratic. At the moment, the private sector has too much power to allow power to be really wielded by the public.

[Dude_Doc]

As Nema said, corporate power is a power to be reckoned with. This is one negative aspect of globalization: those who are poor and whose countries are either undemocratic or powerless against greater powers can not defend themselves from globalization - or the power of the corporations.

Well, at least globalization provides some kind of unity, although I'm sceptic about how good this will actually be once fully realized...

[Egeides]

Your view requires first definition of government's competences. More is left freely for self-organization, the less would crash in case of major governal crisis. This is perfectly recognized

I agree that what I wrote demands that we define the jurisdiction area of each level as I just said there were jurisdictions with general results.

While I am unsure of if anyone would learn anything of it, here is the kind of factors I have in mind as active:

Generally speaking, the more you let some power to a higher sphere, the less you are letting some to a lower one (and vice versa). And so a part of the technicals is about establishing to which extent which level does actually try to act, since we want the lesser losses of energy as possible thus the lesser walls to positive expression; Lenin (and anarchists) thaught that all would be carried on from the lowest level, self-organizing.

Another factor to consider is that different tasks can be carried especially well with uniformity, while some others are not in such a situation. Bigger projects demand greater total investment of energy, more complex projects demand more coordination, etc.

Also, competence is always a limiting factor. While business schools acknowledge that puting people into it gives them competence, there is a limit and a cost to adaptation. So it might be better to get everyone to agree collectively that only engineers build bigger bridges: it is still a common agreement (thus higher level), even if some disagree (especially some who would like to be considered competent).

As a final aspect, I would bring that certain tasks are specific to a given area and better accomplished by the area itself. For example, developing the culture of a given region goes to that region. There are examples where higher entities had control over such productions, with (among many other cases, I heard about Quebec and Hungary). It is just another matter of competence found in one place rather than another.

We can make here a distinction between music and noise. Noise might be a music of its own kind, but in an environment where to goal is something efficient, anything not melodious to the goals ends up as noise. It is the idea of striving for minimal losses. An pertinent point comes: we are talking here about one melody/path/way, which might bring many to think about a globalized way. But the truth is that even if two planets do not communicate for 1000 years, we can still discuss about them as one general world-path constituted of two sub-path: just as now we can have one world, but many sub-entities. Technicals change, fundamentals stay. And the goal is the universal Path of minimal loss, the best path to be chosen.

[Caid Ivik]

Large and/or complex projects do need more coordination and resources, but not legislative support (or base). In this world question stays that competence is either same as ability to perform a task (dh to have a capital, power etc), or such ability combined with legislative blessing - not only passive allowance, that's same for the first choice, but also some manifestation of "will", like supportive government decision or so. Some kind of scientific competence, which could be presented as knowledge of consequences of a project, which may occur outside the equations of expenses and income, manifests itself only under legislative controls. Sure, in democracy may an expert say anything, but if he's not in the competent institution, his voice fades out when faced to the mass.

Anarchists say that legitimacy of legislative is an illusion, we on the other wing (I may call us ie capitalists) say that too high competences of legislative institutes are dangerous for diversity of actions and thus for freedom. To prevent a chaos, it looks so that the way is really only social democracy, which focuses on wider legislative; which ends up in creating many institutes linked to third sector and thus slowing projects trough bureaucracy.

The equation could be more detailed: anarchism puts responsibility for coordinated activities on tribe, capitalists on capable individual and socialism on state. In present situation, a world government with some effect (dh setting and overseeing a coordinated activity in its realms) could arise only in socialist (or to soften it, social democratic) form. In this case, we can return to a failed practice of soviet juggernaut and banish this idea.

We may await either spherification of society on base of experience (like medieval system of guilds and dynasties), which would be an only way to prevent countfinality of centralist decisions (as in socialist case; why should all depend on government?); or to leave the present system (what I think is more likely to happen) of competence laying on pure ability to perform a task and pray that it will self-organize further functionally. This case means, however, that the world would be based on income maximalization and economic minimalism further. With rising number of subjects and also powers of sole ones, a harmony becomes rare if not enforced. Philosophically, this is not the golden path - it's a path of extremes...

[TMA_1]

Let me say this then.

By the way it is completely hypothetical, really just fancying about this.

If the world eventually unifies into a kind of federation, and eventually homogenizes, couldnt this lead to a sort of cultural stagnation? I mean it seems like we are building the tower of babel all over again, and if we do eventually build a path to heaven on earth, what else is there? I mean cultures will eventually acculturate over time in a one world society, it is just a given. We can see this kind of unification already from the big corperations. We feel their impact all the time, from the important where money is won and lost in huge amounts, all the way down to the smallest things, like multi-lingual packaging on many products we buy. It just seems that when we unify, all of the great will go away with much of the evil. I dont think the human race is built to live in that kind of means.

[TMA_1]

Oh it will eventually. My prophesy is that things will become tighter world-wide as far as governments are concerned because of the extremely trying issues the west is facing right now. It wont be a true one world governemnt, but probably a more unified form of the UN. Because of the media's abuse of the people with instilling fear about terrorism, terrorism will have to be addressed more and more, kinda like what Deus Ex showed, which was eerie to play when I noticed it. Also because the environment is suffering so terribly, not now but within 50 years  we will see an even more dangerous impact on what we have done to it, and that will need to be addressed more concretely. Not only this but also corperations will gain more and more control over the world and the governments of the world, and there will have to be more controls set out, and true control over government actions will require a firm cohesive world leadership.

thats just my opinion though.

[Egeides]

Caid, you seem to look at government as a regulatory body, while I see it as an expression of power just as any corporation. The differences are formed from actual tensions and applied pressures effective on such body and bringing its specialization. The state's quasi-monopoly on certain sectors of public administration is one of those pressures applied by the implementation of an obligatory (by constitution) parlementarian system. So a centralized system acts as such, should it be mainly based on a power or another (money, legislation, army...) as in any case it is a power of applied will. Of course, the origin of the power has varied effecgs, strenghtens or weakens in different contexts, and so on. As for now, democratic systems have constitutions which bring certain limiting points on governments, diminishing both centralization and power in certain areas (having power in extreme areas is even forbidden, in cases judged immoral, too unstable and such).

As for minimalist governance and bureaucracy, well there is also governance and bureaucracy in a corporation, of course within a different structure. It then rather seems to be a matter of which groups gain and lose power (here, more especially corporations and governments. But the whole includes many groups, all formed of will-applying individuals). If one group does not succeed enough in applying power in front of others, these others can take over completely or partially by gradual application of their power. This can be done by dealing with the other competitive power, probably by a mix of exclusion and mergeance:

The enforcement of the rule by tapping in what is left of power (including taking the power from what the constitution/corporate laws was keeping in a safe) and potentially aim at a "pax romana" (enforced peace within one structure)

Assimilation of a system by another by merging, for example by getting the strongest players of both sides to agree within one common structure of command (should it be tighter or looser). One now unpopular case of mergeance is fascism, which Mussolini once said it should have been called "corporatism".

In such a situation, you then get one entity to rule over the whole, and a potential united Leviathan coherent with itself. For the Romans, it brought peace out of chaos but it crashed after. It is the usual power play, brought to the most macro scale in the highest sphres.

As for the Babel tower, when I read it I saw it as the Hebrew were observing an empire seeking to be a "one power" system, unifying around power itself. If everyone takes one path, then there is little input from others specialized differently and which could see different cracks. It can lead to unification and then cracks slowly add-up, demand to get raw power to keep the whole place standing, then what was actually the support gets tapped into for this power and exterior energy is needed (conquest, etc). The potential slowly goes down as it is artificially kept up and venerated for its apparent greatness (apparent because of in-world success at that time, even if it globally produces less than it takes).

[Caid Ivik]

Sure, a government is just an effect of legislative, which is the "body" of state. To be sure, same applies for other institutions of any sector, as multinational corporations have their internal legislative as well. What I try to point out is, that all activity is based on consideration of two powers: will and rules; both subjective, altough one of them tries to be objective. Difference is only that you take legislative as an effect of power, while I consider harmonization of powers as major factor. That's for definitions.

Political states are here only as an example, but as their differentiation is much wider than that of ie commercial corporations, I would say their terms are most useful. I think I made myself not very clear there, so I would rather try another view.

As I alredy wrote, globalization already happens in many sectors of communication, economy, science etc. These sectors are linking with each other trough various relations (economy to communication trough advertisments, science to both with technology etc) and as all happens without coordination, instead of it acts a phenomenon of self-organization. Various subjects are, we can say, thinking autonomously, and so acting as determined by their will. Effect is the unconsciouss self-organization based on objective mathematics. Some subjects have knowledge about these objective laws and "hack" the self-organized system to increase its effectivity within relations with other subjects.

On the global level, however, are these laws (I'm not talking about legislative now) unknown and so are manifested only in "will" of the subjects, as one of their "capabilities". To simplify it, efficiency of one rises only on base of exploiting the situation, before another subject is able to do so too. Activity rises in quantity, but in quality only when it's profitable; this remains only a minor problem when we consider the threat of confrontations as higher than probability of harmonized self-organization. If one subject is able to overpower, assimilate or subdue by other way other ones, then in the end it isn't as bad, as a Leviathan is at least stable. However, put more equal Leviathans close and they will end up in permanent confrontation, which they can make crucial for their functionality (as in 1984; or during the 30-Year War).

Lust for power is more probable with rising quantity of it. It is an overcorrupting demon. Same for any other lusts. Problem is that this system is simply based on lusts, and pushing them to extremes.

[TMA_1]

I was just making an allusion to the tower of babel part in the bible for the sake of my text, but if you want to go into detail about it that would be fun too, thought about it a lot.