Posted by Ilya Somin: Why We Don't Need World Government to Solve Global Problems: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_12_07-2008_12_13.shtml#1229208956
The recent upsurge of concern over global warming and the financial crisis has reinvigorated advocates of world government, who claim that it is the only way to solve global problems that cross state boundaries. Left to themselves, individual states might "free ride" on the efforts of others, and the issue in question might remain unaddressed. This recent piece by Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman is one example of the argument. For a more detailed and more academic statement, see [1]here. This case for world government is superficially appealing, but seriously flawed. Even if world government advocates are right to assume that some global problems are too big for any one nation to solve, it doesn't follow that world government is needed to address them. Most of the problems in question can be addressed through cooperation between a few major powers. For example, the United States, the European Union, India, Japan, and China produce the lion's share of the world's greenhouse emissions. An agreement between these major powers could therefore drive emissions way down, even if other states sought to free ride. Similarly, these major powers have the vast majority of the world's banks and other financial institutions, and could therefore cooperate with each other to address the financial crisis (assuming, for the sake of argument, that such international regulation is necessary). Both economic collective action theory and basic common sense suggest that cooperation between a small number of actors isn't difficult to achieve and is not likely to be plagued by free-riding. For a fuller statement of these points and cites to relevant literature, see pp. 1241-43 of [2]this article that I coauthored with John McGinnis. Obviously, cooperation might be prevented not by free-riding but by honest disagreement over the nature of the problem, the kind of action needed to address it, and whether or not the costs of action exceed the benefits. However, such disagreement can also arise even within the confines of a single government. And we can't assume that the advocates of greater regulation are necessarily right. For example, the the US, China, and India may be correct in their belief that the costs of radically reducing fossil fuel emissions in the near future outweigh the benefits. Unless a world government takes the form of a dictatorship or very narrow oligarchy, it too will sometimes be prevented from acting due to internal disagreement. Thus, there is no reason to believe that a world government can act to solve global problems more effectively than a consortium of the world's major powers. The argument sketched out here merely suggests that world government is unnecessary. In later posts, I will explain why its establishment would pose severe dangers. References 1. http://www.cceia.org/resources/journal/22_2/essay/001.html 2. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=929174 _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
