We've Only Got One Globe

The Problem With Globalization

The folks that moon after a one world government see it as the next logical step towards universal peace.  Quite rightly they lay the blame for war, violence and exploitation at the door of tribalism, nationalism, greed and corruption. The globalists have looked around for a villain and believe they have found one in capitalism.

Let's face it, capitalism is tough on the face of it. If you work hard, you reap the rewards. If you don’t – tough luck. No guarantees. Progressivism/socialism says you should take from those who are well off and spread it around to those who are not. It's sold as a more humane form of government. It sounds like progressivism would be a better way of creating a peaceful world than the apparently dog eat dog capitalist system.  That good feeling about progressive socialism lasts until you actually sit down with an honest history book.

The flaw in the progressive ideology is that it assumes a black and white world; one in which all capitalist leaders are greedy, self-interested, evil and exploitative and that socialist leaders are altruistic, unselfish and good.  It further assumes that if we only have one government, war will end. After all, who will we go to war against?  Right?

The truth is, we can't trust any of our leaders, whether they be socialist or capitalist. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Sort of. That old proverb is is flawed. There are sometimes good leaders. Power doesn't corrupt everybody. What actually happens is that "Power attracts the corruptible."  You may get lucky and get one or two incorruptible leaders, but if you surround them with all that power, you can bet there's a whole bunch of folks out there who would dearly love to get their hands on all that power and usually do.

But isn't all those separate nations out there, governing in the name of their own self-interest a very bad thing. Turns out, not so much. The United States is 50 separate government banded together, but each governing according to the self-interest of their own people. Like states, if there are many nations and one nation rises up to harm its neighbors, the community of nation states can (and does) tend to band together against that rogue nation. If there is just one world “nation” and it goes bad, then we’re all pretty much screwed. That's the trouble with breaking all your eggs into one basket. You're really vulnerable to having rotten eggs swirling around poisoning the whole basket.

 Even God does not build a one-world church.  When an oppressive one world church organization threatened to overwhelm Christendom and establish a one world theocracy, God raised up a thousand communities of faith to resist. In ancient Israel, God warned the Israelites that centralizing power in one man - in a king, no matter how charismatic or well-meaning that king might be - was a mistake. God’s system trusts no leader with massive power.  If there were civilizations on other planets nearby stars with whom we had commerce, we might have a need for a global government to represent us. We would also have other worlds to which we could appeal to for help should one planet move against us, or even if our own government become oppressive and went bad.

In the meantime, till we start building the United Federation of Planets, this world is all we've got and we have very good reasons to fear a global government. The other old saw about not putting all your eggs into one basket is excellent advice. Too much of a risk of rotten eggs to make that a safe policy.


(c) 2009 by Tom King - Some Rights Reserved