So all you have is an unsourced substantiation from one source and you want us to just accept that at face value? Have you even bothered to research your position and compare against dissenting viewpoints? Or is it all about faith?
So you don't believe that the current us government is grotesque and over powerful? So by extension, you support drone bombings, Monsanto patent abuse, patent trolls, the central bank, inflation, the war on drugs, the massive transfer of wealth enabled by this powerful central government, legalized insider trading by politicians, graft, corruption, and the persecution of all those whom have blown various whistles? God forbid they stand against the mighty collective.
You can continue inventing straw men, I can do the same, or you can address my position head on. It's up to you.
Are you seriously equating government with "socialism" (or rather some twisted American view of it that agrees 0.0% with the reality of social democracy in such communist hell holes as Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland)?
My point was that the American federal government is only grotesque and over powerful if your standard for it is that of the 18th century Americans (well, really the land owning white male Americans of the time). Popular opinion in the US today no longer uses that standard and it is that popular opinion that will decide about a world government. It could very well be that when the time comes the United States will fall apart with more and more states choosing to join a (no doubt federated, because a global parliament doesn't have time to concern itself with local issues) world government.
The World Bank estimates that the results of climate change will cost the world $1 trillion per year in 2050 and since a world government can solve other problems besides climate change, a loss of $1 trillion through corruption would be worth it.
I'm not sure what your point is. How does any of this change the fact that the US government has morphed into a grotesque, over powerful monster that is completely captured by private interests? You think a world government wouldn't be susceptible to more of the same with even more power and no hope for escape?
I cannot support that. I lean in the opposite direction, with power devolved toward local government and the use of markets for wider issues. Markets aren't perfect, but they've proven to be a much better purveyor of information and happiness than mass-scale socialism.
That's what the UNITED STATES (95% of the world lies outside the US) federal government was designed to do in the 1800s and then later generations changed their minds somewhat. Probably because issues that required coordination became more important so the costs of not solving those issues started to outweigh the costs of having political power concentrated (of course real power is and always has been concentrated in the hands of the rich).
Having at least a moderate level of centralization is necessary in these times to combat global issues and stay competitive with other countries, just as having a military is (and the two aren't entirely unconnected).
What makes you so sure the poor countries will catch up? (In the medium-term.)
China alone has made great strides (but I expect social disruption), and the BRICs have benefitted from the unusual circumstances of not having been subject to the same degree to the Great Recession; but the gains have been modest.
[I am reminded of this by the news reports that 600 million folks in India must defecate in the woods or streets. Every peasant owning an iPhone masks the depth of the poverty.]
You're absolutely right that people in the richer EU countries feel that way, but it's crucial to remember that they are wrong. The current situation in the EU is almost exactly the reverse, with Germany prospering at the expense of Southern Europeans, since southern Europe holds down the value of the Euro, providing a huge boost to German exports, while the Germans raise the value of the Euro for the southerners, screwing up their foreign trade. And that's not even going into the imposition of austerity.
True, but on the other hand I think different varieties of fish are generally pretty close substitutes, so we'll just see a shift in consumption towards more easily farmable fish as they get cheaper compared to wild catches. Hopefully this will reduce the demand for wild fish a bit and let populations start to recover, but that could take quite a while.
No, this is a meta-contrarian piece where RH implicitly takes issue with rightist/libertarian opposition to world government:
Especially including the development of better mechanisms of global governance, and working to better understand what limits their deployment.
The essay is unclearly written, as though RH was unsure which was his theme or maybe didn't even want to be clear; he confounds issues of methods (preaching versus research) with those of substance (world government versus carbon controls--as someone asked, what about preaching world government).
This discussion has concerned his substantive positions because preaching that we shouldn't preach isn't even coherent.
The devil is in the details. Greece has a lower retirement age for women and civil servants and it is generally easier to claim full benefits before the official retirement age than it is in a country like Germany. But the retirement issue was just an example: the main thing is that in the EU the richer countries feel they have to pay for people who do not have to play by the same rules, while the United States has federal laws.regarding social security and many other issues. Also in the US poorer states can contribute things like food, natural resources and soldiers to the whole which is much less the case in the EU.
Does anyone have a non-paywalled link to the full text of the paper?
I prefer to think of it as Gettysburg - with nukes....
So all you have is an unsourced substantiation from one source and you want us to just accept that at face value? Have you even bothered to research your position and compare against dissenting viewpoints? Or is it all about faith?
So you don't believe that the current us government is grotesque and over powerful? So by extension, you support drone bombings, Monsanto patent abuse, patent trolls, the central bank, inflation, the war on drugs, the massive transfer of wealth enabled by this powerful central government, legalized insider trading by politicians, graft, corruption, and the persecution of all those whom have blown various whistles? God forbid they stand against the mighty collective.
You can continue inventing straw men, I can do the same, or you can address my position head on. It's up to you.
Are you seriously equating government with "socialism" (or rather some twisted American view of it that agrees 0.0% with the reality of social democracy in such communist hell holes as Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland)?
My point was that the American federal government is only grotesque and over powerful if your standard for it is that of the 18th century Americans (well, really the land owning white male Americans of the time). Popular opinion in the US today no longer uses that standard and it is that popular opinion that will decide about a world government. It could very well be that when the time comes the United States will fall apart with more and more states choosing to join a (no doubt federated, because a global parliament doesn't have time to concern itself with local issues) world government.
The World Bank estimates that the results of climate change will cost the world $1 trillion per year in 2050 and since a world government can solve other problems besides climate change, a loss of $1 trillion through corruption would be worth it.
"if climate change can be stopped by a world government that costs the world $1 trillion per year through corruption it's still worth it."
Why? Please show your work.
I'm not sure what your point is. How does any of this change the fact that the US government has morphed into a grotesque, over powerful monster that is completely captured by private interests? You think a world government wouldn't be susceptible to more of the same with even more power and no hope for escape?
I cannot support that. I lean in the opposite direction, with power devolved toward local government and the use of markets for wider issues. Markets aren't perfect, but they've proven to be a much better purveyor of information and happiness than mass-scale socialism.
That's what the UNITED STATES (95% of the world lies outside the US) federal government was designed to do in the 1800s and then later generations changed their minds somewhat. Probably because issues that required coordination became more important so the costs of not solving those issues started to outweigh the costs of having political power concentrated (of course real power is and always has been concentrated in the hands of the rich).
Having at least a moderate level of centralization is necessary in these times to combat global issues and stay competitive with other countries, just as having a military is (and the two aren't entirely unconnected).
A global government? So, the oppression, death, and destruction of the us government, but on a worldwide scale, with no escape? No thanks.
That's what the federal government was supposed to do. We can all see how that turned out...
What makes you so sure the poor countries will catch up? (In the medium-term.)
China alone has made great strides (but I expect social disruption), and the BRICs have benefitted from the unusual circumstances of not having been subject to the same degree to the Great Recession; but the gains have been modest.
[I am reminded of this by the news reports that 600 million folks in India must defecate in the woods or streets. Every peasant owning an iPhone masks the depth of the poverty.]
You're absolutely right that people in the richer EU countries feel that way, but it's crucial to remember that they are wrong. The current situation in the EU is almost exactly the reverse, with Germany prospering at the expense of Southern Europeans, since southern Europe holds down the value of the Euro, providing a huge boost to German exports, while the Germans raise the value of the Euro for the southerners, screwing up their foreign trade. And that's not even going into the imposition of austerity.
True, but on the other hand I think different varieties of fish are generally pretty close substitutes, so we'll just see a shift in consumption towards more easily farmable fish as they get cheaper compared to wild catches. Hopefully this will reduce the demand for wild fish a bit and let populations start to recover, but that could take quite a while.
No, this is a meta-contrarian piece where RH implicitly takes issue with rightist/libertarian opposition to world government:
Especially including the development of better mechanisms of global governance, and working to better understand what limits their deployment.
The essay is unclearly written, as though RH was unsure which was his theme or maybe didn't even want to be clear; he confounds issues of methods (preaching versus research) with those of substance (world government versus carbon controls--as someone asked, what about preaching world government).
This discussion has concerned his substantive positions because preaching that we shouldn't preach isn't even coherent.
The devil is in the details. Greece has a lower retirement age for women and civil servants and it is generally easier to claim full benefits before the official retirement age than it is in a country like Germany. But the retirement issue was just an example: the main thing is that in the EU the richer countries feel they have to pay for people who do not have to play by the same rules, while the United States has federal laws.regarding social security and many other issues. Also in the US poorer states can contribute things like food, natural resources and soldiers to the whole which is much less the case in the EU.