When I look at the world today, I realize that one of the underlying problems, which is causing other problems that we face, is the problem of competition between states for political and economic power- in other words, to get the upper hand.

Recently I have been writing about the New World Order Conspiracy Theory, which argues that a small group of elites are plotting to set up a world government, which would presumably be run by those elites, and in which the civil liberties of the world’s citizens are curtailed.

As I noted, the way this theory is presented, in its language, and with music and visual effects in the case of videos, is intended to make us somehow fear this condition of world government. Particularly for Americans, who perhaps feel that their form of government is somehow superior, the idea that the American nation could somehow be eclipsed by an international government, is perhaps fearful at first glance. It is perhaps also somehow related to a fear in Americans of losing their position as the world’s superpower.

But I would like to ask- is there something inherently problematic in the idea of global government? Or is it only when it is imposed on others in a condition in which their rights are curtailed that it becomes problematic? This is a question which I would like readers to reflect on.

Many of us are aware of different problems that exist in the world and which are threatening us, making life difficult for many humans, while we are destroying the environment and crowding out other species.

It has occurred to me that one of the fundamental causes underlying many of these problems is the issue of national competition.

For example, in the era of globalization, many have noted that among developing countries there is a “race to the bottom”. In order to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), developing countries must compete with each other to attract foreign investment from multi-national corporations (MNCs). As a result they must decrease the level of taxation in their countries, they must reduce environmental regulation, and they must reduce the level of wages and benefits for their laborers. If they do not do this, they will not receive as much FDI.

Of course there are other intervening variables, but I assert that this is a fundamental dynamic which is occurring. The result of this is that the workers in developing countries receive smaller and smaller wages, and developing country governments have smaller budgets with which to provide key social services like healthcare and education.

Those countries which do respect worker’s rights and the environment come to be at a disadvantage relative to those who don’t. Let me provide an example. In the People’s Republic of China, which is a one party state in which democratic rights are restricted, there are no independent trade unions, and workers are only able to organize through a state controlled labor union. Several labor activists have been arrested and sentenced to prison terms for attempting to establish independent trade unions or go on strike. This has the effect of keeping wages in China lower than they would be if labor unions were allowed to freely operate.

In other Asian countries, however, the rights of workers’ are more respected, for example in Cambodia and the Phillipines. While wages in Cambodia are lower than in China (about 40 USD per month vs. 120 USD per month in China), the artificially low wages in China combined with other factors (such as better infrastructure and the availability of raw materials), gives China an advantage when attracting FDI.

It can be recognized that, in the struggle for national supremacy and dominance in the global arena, economic power is the key which leads to greater political and military power. The United States is an economy which largely relies on internal consumption (rather than exports) in order to maintain the size and strength of its economy. Yet at the same time, it is often argued that the US is a consumerist society, marked by vast overuse of resources and consumption which is not sustainable environmentally. The US, for example, consumes almost 25% of the world’s oil. It would be impossible for all of the world’s citizens to live at the level of the US citizen, without virtually turning the earth into a wasteland. The US society is a culture often described as consumerist, with advertising and consumption pervading almost every aspect of life.

Yet there would be virtually no interest among the US elite in reducing the consumption of its citizens, because by doing so, it would reduce the power of the US economy, which would in turn reduce the power of the US politically in the world relative to other countries. While reducing the consumption of US citizens would be the most rational thing to do from a global standpoint, it is not in the national interest of the US to do so, because it would result in a loss of power. Meanwhile, the environment suffers by the unsustainable consumption of US citizens. From a social justice standpoint, the vast inequality between citizens of the US and those of developing countries cannot be justified.

In post World War II Europe, many countries pursued welfare state policies which attempted to provide a basic social safety net for its citizens. The effect of these policies was to siphon funds away from corporate entities into government coffers, where they were redistributed to citizens in the form of benefits, medical care etc. I am not trying at this time to address the efficiency of these programs or whether they were ultimately effective. But the end result was that corporations in those countries had less capital to re-invest, which put them at a disadvantage relative to corporations from more purely capitalistic countries like the United States.

After the end of the Cold War, those European countries have dismantled or reduced many of their social welfare programs in order to reduce taxes on corporations and make them more competitive with other multi-national corporations. So, what was essentially a positive idea to provide basic security to these countries citizens, was scaled back so that these countries could better compete economically with other developed countries. There were other factors, such as changes in the political leadership of these countries, but I argue that the need to be more competitive was a driving force nevertheless.

In the Kyoto Protocol, which addressed the serious global problem of climate change, something which affects us all, the problem of national competition played a major role again. While our collective need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit climate change should have been the overarching goal, countries were pitted against each other trying to maintain their own self- interest by minimizing their responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, perhaps one reason the US never ratified the Kyoto Protocol was that Kyoto exempted China and India from reducing their emissions, as “developing” countries. The US perceived that China was a rising power which would come to threaten their global dominance, and did not want to lose their advantage by reducing its energy use, while China was allowed to continue to expand energy use without constraint under Kyoto.

Let us also examine the issue of exploitation of natural resources and labor in developing countries by the dominant, developed countries which have greater capital and technology. Let us set aside the argument about whether there is exploitation and assume that there is indeed exploitation occurring. There is no incentive for any developed country, whether the US, European, Japan, or China, to “play the nice guy” and reduce exploitation through better labor and environmental arrangements. To do so would give an advantage to other developed countries which are their competitors in the global competition for economic power.

In Burma, for example, where firms have been pressured to withdraw for human rights reasons, there is actually no incentive to do so because it would mean losing advantage economically. If Western corporations do not partake in economic activity in Burma, it is almost certain that corporations from China, where there seems to be little domestic pressure to withdraw from regimes with human rights abuses, will enter the country and benefit from doing business there.

There has been a great deal of attention historically to the role of the CIA in engineering conditions in developing countries to ensure that they would remain open to investment by US corporations. Much of this occurred in the context of competition with the Soviet Union for global influence. While a great deal of attention has been given to the CIA, I don’t think that the CIA is the only intelligence agency which has undertaken this kind of activity. Further, I don’t think that this kind of activity will ever end as long as the global system is organized in such a way that countries are competing with each other for dominance. I expect, for example, that as China grows in power, we will begin to see greater and greater interference from China in the internal affairs of important resource providing nations to ensure that China continues to receive the resources that it needs and gain an advantage in the global competition.

And I don’t think that it is only major world powers that did this. Was Ghadafi only motivated by altruism in his involvement in the affairs of other African countries or was he seeking greater influence and power for himself and Libya? Was Charles Taylor not motivated by expansionist aims when he interfered in the affairs of neighboring African countries?

These are only a few of the major issues which are affected by the dominant ethic of national competition- no doubt there are others.

I think that the United Nations is a positive organization and has accomplished many good things during its existence. Yet at the same time we must acknowledge the failure of the U.N. to address and resolve many of the problems that we have in the world. One of the reasons for this is the fact that the U.N. is essentially a servant of the nation states within it- it is a playground for the nations of the world to attempt to assert their influence. It does not have the power to bind countries to any actions in most cases.

Our world is still dominated by calculations of national self- interest. The rhetoric of American politicians for example, is almost always couched in terms of the interest of the United States. This way of thinking will almost always be costly for other countries in the world. What is needed is a group of people, both normal people and elites, who are actually operating in the global interest. No doubt there are already such people around, but they have relatively little power and influence compared to those who act in national self interest.

If there were something approaching a global government, as compared to the current nation-state system, it would be possible to set up for example somewhat universal standards for labor and the environment. This would remove the incentive for developing countries to “race to the bottom” by outcompeting each other to remove labor and environmental protection. If they all had relatively equal standards in these areas, allocation of FDI would be made on the basis of other factors and workers and their welfare would be better protected.

The reduced need for developed countries to compete with each other to achieve dominance would enable them to reduce exploitative activities in developing countries. And in a world with a unified government, there would be virtually no need to compete militarily, allowing for the elimination of much of the wasted money spent on killing machines- guns, weapons, tanks, jetfighters, aircraft carriers, etc. This would free up huge sums of money and resources to address the humanitarian problems in the world, as well as reduce our impact on the planet and other species by conserving resources.

Since regions of the world would be operating in a more cooperative atmosphere and less to preserve their own self interest at the expense others, it would be easier to take positive steps on crucial problems that affect all of us- such as global warming and climate change.

Now, my friends in the New World Order Conspiracy camp, is this something so frightening? Should we fear this? Are you opposed to the concept of world government in principle, or only in the way that you think it will be implemented by these alleged globalist elites?

While I am not prepared at this point to expound on the exact details of the structure of such a government, I would like to point out that it should have two characteristics:

• It should safeguard the rights of the individual citizens and groups within it, and
• It should be implemented in such a way that the weaker, less developed regions (currently less developed countries) would not be overly dominated by those regions which are more powerful.

We are often accustomed to thinking in terms of nation states- often thinking of the interests of our nation versus that of another. We are accustomed to point fingers at other countries and blame them for all of our problems. And so we rarely really consider how we are doing as a species- as human beings as a whole.

If we look at the world today, and in fact set aside our own national identities, and instead consider our actions as humanity as a whole, we have to admit that we are failing as a species, in many ways. Yes, humanity has accomplished many great things, especially in the technological, material, and intellectual realms. But our failures should also be clearly manifest.

Imagine that a group of aliens came to earth and commented to us about what they thought about us. These are a few of the comments that I think they would make:

• You humans- you have developed all kinds of technology that should be able to be used to provide basic needs to everyone of your species- but yet you have failed to do it. Millions of you still languish in poverty. Your children die in the millions from easily curable diseases.
• You are wasting so much of your resources fighting each other. How much time and energy are you wasting to build killing machines that have never fed a single person? How many of your fellow human beings have been killed, and continue to be killed, because you cannot resolve your differences?
• You are destroying your planet and altering it from its natural state, threatening yourselves and endangering even more of your species.
• You humans- you continue to expand and take more and more resources, meanwhile all the other species (except for your domestic friends) are declining in number and the area they have to live in. In fact, you have permanently eliminated many other species which once inhabited your planet.
• You still fight over silly ideas related to religion and ideology, rather than just accepting and tolerating each other.
• You still have a long way to evolve.

I am sure that the alien visitors would have far more to say than that, which would no doubt be far more insightful than what I have written. But it is nevertheless useful to step outside of our national identities and look at ourselves as a species, to get the big picture.

So, in the end, I am proposing that the problem of competition between nations is a fundamental cause of many of the problems that we are facing today. As a consequence, I recommend that we as humans work towards a way to establish a fair and equitable global governance.

Note: I have never met or communicated with any aliens. I have never researched claims that aliens have contacted earth, but I am very skeptical of such claims. I am not making any assertions about the existence or non-existence of aliens. My reference to aliens in this post is purely for the sake of argument. ; )

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