World Citizen Virtual Book Club

I have been encouraging people to read this book for many years because I believe that it has been one of the best arguments for the need to create a democratic world federation. Ronald Glossop, Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, wrote this book after the end of the Cold War in order to show why world federation is needed and how to go about creating it. During the Cold War, world federalists were often viewed as utopian and “soft on communism.”

After explaining the proper functions of government, the requirements for vibrant democracy, the difference between international law (treaties) and world law, and the difference between confederation (such as the current United Nations system) and federation (such as the relationship between state governments and the national government in the U.S.), Glossop argues that the main argument for a federal world government is to create and preserve law and order for the world community. This would require a world constitution, a world legislature, a world executive, a world court, world police, and world prisons. A major problem will be deciding whether the number of representatives each country would have in the world legislature should be based on national wealth, power, and/or population. Another problem is deciding how representatives from different nations will be elected or selected.

World laws would apply to individuals, not to nations. Individual violators of world law would be brought to justice. National governments would not need to maintain military forces in order to protect their people from other nations. National governments would only need that amount of police force to keep law and order within their nation. Instead of counting tanks and nuclear weapons to determine how a conflict might be resolved, a democratic federal world government would count votes in a world parliament. Glossop argues that there is no reason why the world federation would need nuclear weapons.

World laws would apply to individuals, not to nations. Individual violators of world law would be brought to justice. National governments would not need to maintain military forces in order to protect their people from other nations. National governments would only need that amount of police force to keep law and order within their nation. Instead of counting tanks and nuclear weapons to determine how a conflict might be resolved, a democratic federal world government would count votes in a world parliament. Glossop argues that there is no reason why the world federation would need nuclear weapons.

In addition to replacing the current war system with a democratic peace system, Glossop argues that a world federation should be created in order to:

1. manage the globally interdependent world economy and regulate transnational corporations;
2. avoid ecological disaster by bringing polluters to justice;
3. govern the oceans, Antarctica, and outer space;
4. deal better with gross violations of human rights;
5. control organized international crime such as drug trafficking; and
6. promote a sense of world community and world citizenship. In order to promote global communication, Glossop is an advocate of teaching Esperanto as a universal secondary language in addition to learning native languages.

One of the most important features of this book is Glossop’s responses to those who are critics of federal world government. Some critics have argued that governments do not always keep the peace. Glossop’s response is that our current global anarchy is not the solution. Democratic governments on the local, state, and national levels have been successful in resolving conflicts nonviolently. Global democracy would be a much better solution than the current expensive system of coercive diplomacy and war.