The proposed book, of which I have read the prospectus, is a valuable addition to the voluminous literature on world government of which I am aware. It tries to separate itself as a new and distinct proposal that would have a wider range of acceptance, and this may be true to some extent.
However, Yunker underestimates the flexibility of other World Federalists. I have been a member in Canada since 1948, and I am still active. In my experience, most World Federalists have been, and are, minimalists, not maximalists, and certainly not overly dogmatic. In fact, the main core now are working mainly on U.N. reform and functional proposals of immediate significance, for which they are sometimes criticized by the dogmatic maximalist minority.
It is also not true that World Federalists of the minimalist type have been unsuccessful since the boom of the early 1950s. As a small example, one of the six proposals of the Campaign for U.N. Reform, the creation of an International Criminal Court, is gradually reaching completion. The World Federalist Movement’s New York office is highly respected by U.N. agencies and NGOs in New York. For example, William Pace has helped Cora Weiss organize the highly successful Hague Appeal for Peace in May 1999, which some
10,000 people attended, and which was addressed by 5 Nobel Peace Prize winners and a few heads of state. Unfortunately media coverage was poor for such a large event, and so academics who read only mainstream publications and academic books may be unaware of it.
Coming now to the core proposals in Yunker’s book. I would think that the idea of each nation retaining the right to secede would be acceptable to most World Federalists certainly to me. I am a Canadian born in Czechoslovakia, and my land of birth has experienced “a velvet divorce” between Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and Canada would negotiate a separation of Quebec if a referendum showed a reasonably large “yes” vote (more than 50% + 1) as an answer to a clear question. In my mind, a state is not a holy thing or a living organism, but only an administrative facility, and so secession would not be a big deal. This is contrary to the historical U.S. experience in last century’s civil War. In fact, economist and peace researcher Kenneth Boulding said that North and South should have separated, and the U.S. would then not be such an overwhelming superpower.
However, I have to register a strong opposition to the second core proposal in Yunker’s book, namely that nations belonging to the world government should retain their armaments, even nuclear weapons. I belong to several disarmament movements, including the international one for the abolition of nuclear weapons. I also believe that even snaIl arms and light weapons are causing an immense amount of damage, mostly to civilians, in the 35 wars raging around the world. I have an alternative proposal: let not only the nations, but also the world government, be totally disarmed (retaining only pOlice-type weapons). Then the danger of global dictatorship, which Yunker so fears, would also become less likely, by another route. Instead of all being armed to the teeth, all levels would be deprived of “the last resort” and be forced to negotiate velvet divorces and other issues.
I was at first worried about the name “Federal Union of Democratic Nations”; it seemed to imply that only democratic nations would be admitted, which would greatly limit the very desirable universality of the world government. Such proposals, of course, do exist, and I have always resisted them. However, I was reassured as I read on, that non-democracies would in fact be admitted, in the hope that they would become democratic more quickly through the association. Of course, the world government itself has to be democratic (which the present U.N. is not), and perhaps the word “democratic” in the name refers to this requirement. I do think that the author should make this clear much earlier in the book, in order to clarify this point from the start.
About the fears of a massive redistribution of wealth by a strong world government in which poor nations have a majority: It reminds me of the fears of the aristocracy in England that if the poor were allowed to vote in an expanded democracy, their wealth would be confiscated. We should note that this did not happen, perhaps because the poor were not aware of their power to do so, or perhaps propaganda from the top persuaded them that they too could become rich individually. In any case, I am glad that the WEEP program is part of Yunker’s proposal, and the redistribution would eventually take place, though more slowly and gradually.
I have always been in favour of what I call “planned gradualism”, i.e. instituting reforms in such a way that they would, gradually but eventually, automatically without further reform being required, lead to the desired result. Many years ago I have made calculations for a gradual redistribution between rich and poor nations, which I called “the GAIN Plan” (Guaranteed Annual Income Plan for Nations). Planned gradualism, is also used in weighted voting plans which start by assigning voting weights both on the basis of population and wealth, but which automatically come to be based on population alone when wealth has been equalized. Yunker’s plan has this feature, as mine has as well.
With regard to the rich (nations or individuals) opposing redistribution, it would be good to point out to them (as Yunker does without explaining it) that an amount of money transferred would be a small percentage of the larger, wealth of the rich, but a large percentage of benefit to the poor. A numerical example would help. It is almost a win-win game. It should also be made clear that economic growth cannot continue forever, since resources would run out. And poor countries can never be brought to the level of the rich. Exponential growth (so many % per year) is impossible for anything in the universe, including the world economy.
Speaking of attitude change, we might also explain to the rich that happiness does not depend on wealth only, but it comes mainly from a productive life, close family relationships, friendships, enjoyment of the arts and music, and a meaningful spiritual and mental life. Most of this can be had in a life of voluntary simplicity. Gandhi said that happiness depends on the fraction of wants satisfied over wants perceived, and that this can be attained not only by increasing the numerator of that fraction, but also by decreasing the denominator.
Turning now to the voting proposals. Yunker’s scheme of counting votes both on a population basis and on the basis of contributions to the world government is good. It is similar to the “Binding Triad” proposal of Richard Hudson for the U.N. General Assembly (his third way of counting is by flags, i.e. one nation one vote). It also resembles my proposal for weighted voting, where each nation’s vote would depend on two factors, population and GNP (or U.N. contributions). This would achieve the same end as Yunker’s scheme, i.e. a GRADUAL transfer of power from the rich to everybody, in conformance with democratic principles. But I agree that the transfer should be gradual to prevent sudden jolts, as well as acceptability, and both Yunker’s and my scheme achieves this.
One additional thought about levels in a federation:
Most World Federalists at this time think in terms of “subsidiarity”, which is like about 6 levels of federal structures: neighbourhood, town or city, province or canton, nation, continent, world. The principle is that problems should be solved at a level at which there are no significant external effects beyond that level. (Of course, there would be arguments about details of the division of responsibility, but only peaceful and solvable arguments.) This is quite a decentralized structure, and yet it gives appropriate powers, now, missing, to the world level. It is important (I agree with Yunker) that individuals should vote directly for each level. I picture this as a “wedding cake model”.
One minor point: Yunker’s proposed structures are modelled too much on the American model. The three divisions of power (legislative, executive, judicial) and a direct popular vote for the president are not features of the British or European continental systems. I am especially uncomfortable about electing judges; this would impair their impartiality, distancing from politics, which is desirable. An alternative for electing the head of state, of course, is that he or she should be the head of the winning party or coalition in the legislature. To have a President and Congress from different parties is an undesirable feature of the u.s. system.
I agree entirely with Yunker that any social experiment should be reversible, to be changed or abandoned if we don’t like the results. I would like to add that, no matter how much we like our own proposals, we should always keep in mind that we might be wrong. This is a useful antidote to dogmatism. I used to be a chemist, and I know that if we try to speed up a reaction by raising the temperature to much, we might end up with a charred mess, or even a disastrous fire.
And a minor criticism: Yunker uses the concept of “homogenization” of cultures, languages, and religions as ultimately desirable. I would want to preserve diversity, which is ecologically sound not only in nature but in society as well. When a language or a culture dies, as is now occurring with native peoples, it is a tragedy. Extinction is forever. Surely we can have multiple loyalties, in the subsidiarity scheme, without impairing our overall loyalty to humanity as a whole. “Ex pluribus unum.”