The Case for World Government
Reading Dylan Matthews’ interview with Rutger Bregman, I am very sympathetic to Bregman’s criticisms of private philanthropy, but his preferred alternative — foreign aid — is clearly not ideal either. The right solution is world government. For the same reasons that preventing children from dying from malaria shouldn’t have to depend on the generosity of a few billionaires, it also shouldn’t have to depend on the generosity of rich-country governments. In a just world, we’d have a democratically-elected world government with broad tax-and-spend powers to deal with problems like malaria.
(By world government, I don’t mean a global version the European Union, which doesn’t have the tax-and-spend powers of a proper sovereign government. The EU’s inability to decide whether it wants to be a real government or not causes problems, ones I wouldn’t want replicated on a global scale.)
Assuming we don’t destroy civilization in a nuclear war or something like that, I think we’ll look back on the way we currently divide people up based on nationality as a monstrous absurdity, like the privileges of the medieval aristocracy. I think a few people have this intuition, and think the solution is open borders, but open borders clearly aren’t enough. There’s an open border between Puerto Rico and the rest of the United States, but it’s still unjust that Puerto Ricans can’t vote for Congress or President. And the disenfranchisement of Puerto Ricans isn’t just bad as a matter of abstract principle — it probably explains why Puerto Rico received so little disaster aid compared to other states that have been hit by hurricanes.
I don’t mean to say open borders would be bad. If Puerto Ricans were banned from leaving the island, that would be even worse than the status quo. But moving to the continental US isn’t equally easy for all Puerto Ricans, so the open border is much less helpful to some Puerto Ricans than others. Similarly, while open borders would probably vastly improve the lives of countless people around the globe, it would probably leave many people desperately poor, without any voice in the world’s centers of power. The right solution is world government.
In fact, a world government would probably benefit almost everyone, including people in rich countries. California probably benefits on net from being part of the United States, even though we pay more in taxes than we get back from the federal government, and even though we have to endure having Republican presidents about half the time. Similarly, a world government would have some downsides for the United States, but we’d benefit a lot too. Among other things, we could get rid of our bloated defense budget, and stop worrying about the possibility of nuclear war with Russia or North Korea.
To be clear, the moral case for world government doesn’t depend on the benefits to rich countries, any more than the case for abolishing serfdom rested on making aristocrats better off. Still, it’s worth noting that the possible downsides, even for rich countries, are probably exaggerated—at least if you think being part of the United States is a good deal for California.
I realize this is all terribly impractical. Even if majorities of people in all the world’s democratic countries supported world government, it’s hard to imagine the leaders of China or Saudi Arabia allowing democratic elections on their soil any time soon. However, I think a lot of currently hot debates — about charity, immigration, free trade, and so on — would be less confusing if we realized we were talking about second-best solutions, with world government being the thing we’d have if we lived in a truly just society.
