World government
[3][4] The concept of universal governance has existed since antiquity and been the subject of discussion, debate, and even advocacy by some kings, philosophers, religious leaders, and secular humanists.
[1] Some of these individuals have proposed world government is a natural and inevitable outcome of human social evolution, and interest in it has coincided with increasing globalization and those societal trends resulting from or associated with it.
[5] Opponents of world government, who come from a broad political spectrum, view the concept as a tool for violent totalitarianism, unfeasible, or simply unnecessary,[1][6][7] and in the case of some sects of fundamentalist Christianity, as a vehicle for the Antichrist to bring about the end-times.
[9] Remarkably, Wendt also supposes the alternative of universal conquest leading to world state, provided the conquering power recognizes "its victims as full subjects."
The Han dynasty, which successfully united much of China for over four centuries, evidently aspired to this vision by erecting an Altar of the Great Unity in 113 BCE.
[12] The Pax Romana, a roughly two-century period of stable Roman hegemony across three continents, reflected the positive aspirations of a world government, as it was deemed to have brought prosperity and security to what was once a politically and culturally fractious region.
[14] In his fourteenth-century work De Monarchia, Florentine poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri, considered by some English Protestants to be a proto-Protestant,[15] appealed for a universal monarchy that would work separate from[16] and uninfluenced[17][18] by the Roman Catholic Church to establish peace in humanity's lifetime and the afterlife, respectively: But what has been the condition of the world since that day the seamless robe [of Pax Romana] first suffered mutilation by the claws of avarice, we can read—would that we could not also see!
what tempests must need toss thee, what treasure be thrown into the sea, what shipwrecks must be endured, so long as thou, like a beast of many heads, strivest after diverse ends!
Nor dost thou heal thy affection by the sweetness of divine persuasion, when the voice of the Holy Spirit breathes upon thee, 'Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
The Spanish philosopher Francisco de Vitoria is considered an author of "global political philosophy" and international law, along with Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius.
This came at a time when the University of Salamanca was engaged in unprecedented thought concerning human rights, international law, and early economics based on the experiences of the Spanish Empire.
The Dutch philosopher and jurist Hugo Grotius, widely regarded as a founder of international law, believed in the eventual formation of a world government to enforce it.
[20] His book, De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace), published in Paris in 1625, is still cited as a foundational work in the field.
[22] The year of the battle at Jena (1806), when Napoleon overwhelmed Prussia, Johann Gottlieb Fichte in Characteristics of the Present Age described what he perceived to be a very deep and dominant historical trend: There is necessary tendency in every cultivated State to extend itself generally...
Such is the case in Ancient History ... As the States become stronger in themselves and cast off that [Papal] foreign power, the tendency towards a Universal Monarchy over the whole Christian World necessarily comes to light...
Ulysses S. Grant, US president, was convinced that rapid advances in technology and industry would result in greater unity and eventually "one nation, so that armies and navies are no longer necessary.
[25] Bahá'u'lláh founded the Baháʼí Faith teaching that the establishment of world unity and a global federation of nations was a key principle of the religion.
[28][29] Karl Marx, the traditional founder of communism, predicted a socialist epoch in which the working class throughout the world will unite to render nationalism meaningless.
The Institute of International Law was formed in 1873 by Belgian jurist Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns, leading to the creation of concrete legal drafts, for example by the Swiss Johaan Bluntschli in 1866.
As early as his 1905 statement to Congress,[32] U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt highlighted the need for "an organization of the civilized nations" and cited the international arbitration tribunal at The Hague as a role model to be advanced further.
"[38] In a 1907 letter to Andrew Carnegie, Roosevelt expressed his hope "to see The Hague Court greatly increased in power and permanency",[39] and in one of his very last public speeches he said: "Let us support any reasonable plan whether in the form of a League of Nations or in any other shape, which bids fair to lessen the probable number of future wars and to limit their scope.
[41] In its move to overthrow the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles, Germany had already withdrawn itself from the League of Nations, and it did not intend to join a similar internationalist organization ever again.
[42] In his stated political aim of expanding the living space (Lebensraum) of the Germanic people by destroying or driving out "lesser-deserving races" in and from other territories, dictator Adolf Hitler devised an ideological system of self-perpetuating expansionism, in which the growth of a state's population would require the conquest of more territory which would, in turn, lead to a further growth in population which would then require even more conquests.
[41] In 1927, Rudolf Hess relayed to Walther Hewel Hitler's belief that world peace could only be acquired "when one power, the racially best one, has attained uncontested supremacy".
When Kansas and Colorado fall out over the waters in the Arkansas River, they don't go to war over it; they go to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the matter is settled in a just and honorable way.
[47] In France, 1948, Garry Davis began an unauthorized speech calling for a world government from the balcony of the UN General Assembly, until he was dragged away by the guards.
[53] In 1949, six U.S. states—California, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, New Jersey, and North Carolina—applied for an Article V convention to propose an amendment "to enable the participation of the United States in a world federal government".
[59][60] In his "Open Letter to the General Assembly of the United Nations" of October 1947, Einstein emphasized the urgent need for international cooperation and the establishment of a world government.
[78] By 1950, the Cold War began to dominate international politics and the UN Security Council became effectively paralyzed by its permanent members' ability to exercise veto power.
These institutions have been criticized as simply oligarchic hegemonies of the Great Powers, most notably the United States, which maintains the only veto, for instance, in the International Monetary Fund.
