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The United Nations: Dictator's Trade Union

Astrology is Bunk

The Great Teleport Debate

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways;
the point is to change it. ”

Karl Marx

Improving the world is what we have to do. Most religions distract us from that either by saying the world should not be changed, or cannot be changed or that this world does not matter or no world matters. I totally disagree. There is only this world and I for one do not like the idea of it being less perfect than it could be.

I find nationalism to be an evil force. Nationalism is the biggest evil of the modern era. It is not useful to us, it is just a force that appeals to instincts to protect our own. A very powerful force that we should learn not to misuse. Nationalism helped Stalin keep the Communist party in power. It helped many US politicians keep the Communists out of power. It drove the third Reich and helped invigorate Britain to face Germany alone. Like Christianity it fuelled both sides equally in the American Civil War and the First World War. Only malaria and influenza killed more people in the twentieth century. It is the most powerful meme in the modern world.

To counter nationalism and nation states we must put something strong in their place. I have sympathy with those anarchists who think the world would be great if the governments just withered away, the same kind of sympathy I have with people who believe the world is flat, I pity them and disagree with their ideas. A world without government would be anarchic in the tabloid journalist sense not in the Kropotkin sense. Government is a necessary evil. If national governments are too dangerous, which I believe, the only obvious alternative is a world government. The Parliament of Man.

The advantages are enormous, the difficulties are immense. To get there we have to begin the journey, as Mao said, even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I wish I knew exactly how to take those first steps. That is one of the main purposes of this web site, I want to inspire some young mind to take the next step, to begin the journey to a united world. Or at least keep the idea alive for another generation.

When the world becomes one there will be no foreign competition. No imports. No overseas aid. No Ministry of War. Peace is such a wishy-washy concept, it is only defined by its absence. We will not appreciate it. However we may be able to appreciate some of the other benefits. All too often politicians have to face the reality that they do not run the whole world. If you pay people to dig holes in the road (or build a dam or an autobahn or pretend to be soldiers) they spend the money, causing an expansion of the economy. Newly employed people spend their wages buying things they need, which somebody else has to make. This generates a virtuous circle that creates the wealth to pay back the money initially borrowed to pay the people to dig the holes. But often that expansion is abroad.

With one world economy and world reflation the problem goes away. You cannot draw in cheaper imports from Mars, the value of the Earth Dollar will not be devalued against the Venus Pound. Inhabitants of the Alpha Cenuri system will not take all your jobs. If you raise standards of animal husbandry in Earth's farms you will not lose out to foreign competition. If you tax fossil fuel use here jobs will not go abroad. If you reduce the length of the working week you will not see your competitors leaping in to take advantage.

It is very simple, most human problems can be solved by abolishing THEM. If there is only US we can solve our problems, we do not have to worry about THEM. The best foreign policy is no foreigners.

Try this thought experiment about relative standards of living. Across the other side of the galaxy there is a civilization that is so rich they can buy custom built planets to live on, and nobody is really poor, at least nobody worth bothering about. When do we become relatively poor? As soon as we hear about them? As soon as they come to spend money in our hotels (so making us less poor)? As soon as they buy a few of our islands? Or never, because relative poverty is a concept invented by middle class sociologists who need something to make those of us in the real economy feel guilty about?

If I am not poor nobody can make me poor by being rich. Poverty only has a meaning in absolute terms. In contrast wealth only has meaning in relative terms.

Once there is a united world we can jump off the escalator of growth. No western country needs to grow at the current rate in order to have happy citizens. Quite the contrary, most of the western world is suffering stress caused by fear of "International Competition" feeding the quest for growth. Most growth does not lead in any way to happiness, we are not happier because all the things in our home are now designed to last no more than five years, and our cars last as long as the loans required to buy them. We are on that treadmill of growth because we see ourselves in competition with other countries, who are also only running fast in order to keep up their lead or so as not to fall any further behind. A Red Queen Race. We have to run as fast as we can just to stop going backwards. But in reality nobody is going backwards.

What are countries competing FOR? Immigrants?

What do you get if you win?

Erase the borders and you erase most of problems in the world today. If you get rid of foreigners there is no need to have a socialist revolution, egalitarianism of some sort will be almost inevitable. All the arguments of the right wing, Conservatives, Fascists, Republicans and economic liberals all suddenly lose their weight. Who are we fighting against? Who are we trying to get ahead of? Who do we have to defend ourselves against, economically or militarily? The real issues then become the real issues. How are we to manage our population and ecology? How are we to decide who deserves to be rich, and at whose expense? The point that I am making is that even if today the capitalist inspired parties have a case to make, once the world becomes united all the basic tenets of the right wing parties are swept away. The left wing parties will not have to unite to win the fight, the battleground will be vacant. Whatever coalitions may arise they will be some shade of red, or green; the capitalists will have no case to put.

There will be no need to keep an army, just police with enough fire power to keep gangsters in check. Perhaps a few nuclear missiles should be kept to provide some protection (or illusion of protection) against asteroid or comet collision. 95% of the military forces on the planet could be stood down, that would still give us a huge capacity to cope with riots, bandits, pirates and looters.

The people themselves will decide all the rules, not having to bow down before international capitalist "market forces". There will still be economic realities to confront, but nowhere near as many economic bogeymen. I remember the horror stories about what impact the National Minimum Wage would have in Britain, the left do not understand the economics of the real world they said. Well, it happened and I saw the impact myself as I was unemployed at the time it was introduced. Little change. Wages went up for some people and the nightmare scenarios failed to happen. The rich in the capitalist classes will always paint a grim picture of any change they do not agree with.

When every man and woman on the planet has the vote how many votes do you think will go to maintaining the current balance of wealth and power?

How can we be paupers with the ballot in our hands?

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

mwillett.org: Debate Unlimited