Depends on how it's run.

I one world government would probably be akin to Hitler or Stalin's rule.  If you give an elite few power, they will abuse that power.  It's human nature.  I would not want to live in a world like that.

I think you would need a lot of checks and balances to make sure that you wouldn't end up with a Hitler or Stalin.  Basically you would need a true democracy.  I don't think there's potential for a Hitler or a Stalin to survive in Canada, for example, due to the democractic process.  I also don't think we can associate today's mindset with a single government because of how far away it is and the amount of changes that need to take place first.

I am a very big supporter of globalization.  I don't think you can just add 1 government to the way the world is today though.  Peoples mindsets need to change, and I think it will over time.  A very long time.

If you really think bout the # of things that have to happen prior to really being capable of eliminating borders it's fairly daunting.  Religion would need to basically take a back seat or be removed.  It would probably need to be a social government.  A society where we can remove economics and capitalism from the picture.  You can't have world peace and remove the borders with the inequity that is going on in the world.  It would take a gigantic shift in resources and money from it's current dispersal to allow for that to happen.

The whole worlds perception on how to go about life needs to change.  I really do think globalization is a beutiful dream though.  But it really will take a number of generations for the ideals of 1 community to settle in.

It may even take a 'global' type adversity (maybe global warming, maybe oil) to change peoples mindsets. 

if you like the idea of a one goverment rule all, you'd probably be interested in reading philip k. dick books. start with the Man in the high castle.

IMO before world government could be possible you'd have to have very, very fast, cheap travel to anywhere in the world in a few hours or less. Then, after a century or two of that, you'd have most people in the world linguistically and culturally similar. At that point, some kind of world government might be possible, not before.

Those who think we will evolve to a new human nature that will support one world government are misusing evolution. We can't predict how or even if human nature will evolve over time with any certainty, and certainly optimism is an invalid basis for trying.

But I think the idea is fundamentally bad. Governments do not, as a rule, become more free and less corrupt as they get larger; in fact it seems to me that the opposite occurs. Governments attract people who seek power, and the more powerful the government, the more it will attract power-mongers.

My ideal is for governmental power to be held at a very local level, and then those small governments would interact with each other in friendly agreements which would allow for free trade, free movement and employment, intellectual free exchange and cooperation on large projects. Rather than entrusting all our freedoms to an unresponsive monolithic central bureaucracy, so large that it is immune to criticism and able to control everything, we would rely on responsive local self-limited governments to mediate disputes and fulfill the basic purpose of government.

I think there's a bit of a misconception that 1 government would imply an association with how things are currently done.  And I think that's a false assumption.  I don't think it can work based on how it's done.

It's not about evolving human nature, it's about rethinking how the world currently is.  Changing the mindset that we are small seperated communities exploring earth.  But rather 1 set of people exploring the universe.  I don't think it's misplaced optimism to suggest we should work towards eliminating the discrimination and segregation that prevents the world from living in peace.  If the world can truely live in peace (which I think would only happen with the elimination of both religion as a political influence as well as elimination of our current economic model in the world) and share the worlds resources towards common goals we'd be in a far better place than we are.

You can talk about human nature all you want, but I see it as a gradual advancement in social issues (one by one) much like the womans rights, gay rights, and secularist / atheist movements.

I don't think it's the main one, but I think it's a neccessary one.

And, to be honest, I'm not sure how to approach the main one.

I see the main one as the current economies of the world.  Eliminating greed, and closing the standard of living gap in the world.  Essentially I'm suggesting that a world government would probably mean socialism.  I also don't have all the answers as to how that would work since there are historically greedy portions of socialism as well.  The only thing I'm fairly certain of is that capitalism won't work as a world economy in a world that would need to be based on equality.

That said, it's hard to unite two sets of people who are both saying the other are doing the devils work.  So it's a starting place.

Yes, it is idealism.

There's no question.

I'm also not proposing change.  In fact I can not express enough that I don't know how this is accomplished, nor that it is even possible.

To me, in an ideal world, one person does not eat 2 extra meals in a day while another person dies of starvation.  You may see that as an acceptable reality of the world, but I see that as something that is a shame.

You're suggestion an oppressive world, and I'm not suggesting an oppressive world is the answer.  Which is why I know I don't have the answers.  There are so many problems with talking about ideals that obviously this is not a reality within the confines of our world and our reality.

Equality may not mean everyone gets the same slice of the pie.  But Equality should mean that everyone is given the same opportunities.  Everyone has, at their disposal, their basic needs of life met such as food, a roof, and an education.

Globalization and world peace are not realistic possibilities in our world...eliminating religion is not a possibility in our world...neither is eliminating racism, creating acceptance for gays, creating true equality world wide among the different sexes.

These are all things that have been recently or are not possibilities in our lifetime.  But progress gets made towards it.  Globalization, to me, is not just about a single government.  It's about finding a balance that eliminates the need for wars among people that at the end of the day are ultimatly all part of 1 world-wide community.  About not discriminating against people and groups for trivial reasons.

Socialism, in the form that perhaps it is used in Canada or other more social countries than the US, is perhaps a good starting place.  There's no shortage of evidence that hte US has it wrong.  Though it's also clear that no one has a perfect system.

So yes, I'm talking 100% in ideals and not in reality.  The changes that it will take to do something like that is staggering. Though I do believe that organizations like the UN are positive steps towards trying to find a bit of global unity.  It's going to be neccessary to have some kind of a global entity to help manage things like polution and deal with 'world' issues that affect everyone and need everyones participation.

Eliminating greed would seem a bit idealistic indeed. But restricting it's capabilities is reasonable enough. Capitalism merely furthers greed.

Looking after society improves societies ability to look after us, furthering our self interest and survival.

I have an idea of how it would work. Socialism isn't a magic solution to everything any more than any other thing is. But it is certainly capable of being a path to a richer, healthier, smarter, and happier society.

Neither does this one. But how exactly are you better or worse than anyone else? What makes you so special that you deserve special treatment?

I don't think we're as far off as you might think.  I'm talking in ideals, but you take baby steps towards things like this.  As you get farther along pushing it even farther becomes easier because people have grown up in a different ideal system where greed isn't as much the focus.

You can simply look at how the US treats it's capitalism vs other countries that still actually look after their poor in a reasonable way.  The US is a shameful example of greed dominating over social responsibility.

/rant on 

For the world to even get an inch closer to even moderatly decent social responsibility world wide the US would have to sacrifice tons.  All the modern countries will, but the US has so many of the worlds resources tied up into a few people that are willing to destroy the world just to retain their possessions.

This kind of a mentality has to change for the world and for our species as a whole to survive in the long-term.  We have survived as long as we have, but with our technologies we are able to destroy things at a faster rate so that we can make bigger cups to hold our over sized drinks and have bigger televisions.

I don't think many people look at it this way, but we are so overly fortunate to have the wealth in modern countries that we do but we should also recognize that we do it at the expense of people not even having clean water to drink.

It's no surprise to me that a large portion of the population in Africa is religious.  They have nothing else to believe in.  Though you look at their supposed equal Christians that are stuffing their faces despite their own bible telling them that they should be looking after the poor instead.

Evangelical Christianity in the US is such a huge industry and is so incredibly hypocritical to the teachings of the bible it's amazing to me that people are successfully brainwashed into believing the tripe that they spew out.

Okay, I forgot my point.

/rant off 

I don't think we need to know what this global government looks like today to know that there are major cultural issues that need to be bypassed before it can truely do anything of use.  And those are the things that I can spend my life focusing on. 

And that's why I said 'ideally', as in how it's supposed to work, and in general how it does work. I was correcting a ridiculous characterization that "Capitalism merely furthers greed," as you put it.

I'm not claiming that it is not a self-interested system, nor am I claiming that it is the solution to all our problems.

Nonsense. In an idealized capitalism, everyone is free to pursue their own ends, and no one is a slave.

Then on that we agree. Tarpan said that socialism would do just that, and I was objecting to his comment. If you are not making the same claim, I do not see the need to discuss it with you, seeing as on this point, we already agree.

There's nothing wrong with greed, properly restrained by law and society. It's a basic part of human nature.

That is obviously false. We have greed. We are surviving. We can survive with greed.

However, as I have said, that greed needs to be balanced by social, moral, and legal pressure.

Capitalism operates under the theory that as you help yourself, you help society as a whole as well. You can't really call that purely self-interested.

And no balance with pure socialism. Read back. When did I ever advocate pure capitalism? The first person to mention capitalism in the thread was tarpan, and the second was you. I am arguing against the idea advanced by several people here that worldwide socialism will magically solve all the world's problems, especially without an explanation of how it would do so.

Which is why there are no social programs in the US for the homeless and impoverished. Oh, wait, there are.

I'll agree that there are social and economic problems in the US, but I don't see where socialism is the answer.

The US has public homeless shelters, public aide for low-income families, educational subsidies for the low-income, affordable public schools (free for those who can't pay at all), and countless private charities, and all without becoming a completely socialist society. So what would a complete socialism be able to do that we have failed to do and cannot do without more socialism?

We definitely have some economic and social problems, but it's not as if there are loads of people dieing on our streets for lack of home and health. And many of the problems are more complex than could be fixed by just economic changes.

If you want to suggest that we often have our priorities wrong, I won't disagree. But to imply that we don't even try is just untrue.

Sounds like capitalism to me. If a person were to simply refuse to work, what would happen to them in your idealized system? Would they not potentially become homeless? How can you claim to be able to eliminate homelessness when you allow such a thing to occur?

The tyranny of the majority. The larger the majority, the more easily minority groups are marginalized.

The difference is that I have not offered capitalism as an answer to any problem. I am only explaining how it works to you because you seem to want to mis-characterize it, nothing more. Furthermore it wasn't the idealism itself that I was objecting to; idealism is how any such system starts out; it was really the pie-in-the-sky, the notion that it would solve the world's problems without an explanation of how it would do so. It's like people thought we would just wave a magic socialism wand over the world and everything would be better, and I was looking for an explanation as to how exactly that would occur.

True, it does presuppose a political system that can guarantee some basic rights. So what? I'm not proposing anarchy. There's no reason that an economic system must be independent of politics, and in fact I don't see how it could be.

Any government can have social programs, democratic or not. And money may be power, but it seems to me that the real problem is the power itself. Many of the people who seek power are exactly the types of people we don't want to have it. The money is just one mechanism that exposes this underlying problem, and socialism would have the same sorts of problems given the same political system. It seems to me that real solution is to engineer governments to be less susceptible to power-mongers (like Bush & Friends). I have some ideas on how to do that, but I don't think they relate to the current conversation.

And that's why we need governments, regardless of economic system. Once again Please read and understand: I am not advocating unrestrained capitalism.

Ok, but, that's not what you said. Since you seem to have equated greed with capitalism, I wonder what the practical difference is in your mind. In any case, this would need to be proven, since we have been surviving with capitalism for quite some time now. And before you cite global warming as an example, I would point to China, which within the next two years is projected to surpass the US in CO2 emission, and it would be hard to call China an unrestrained capitalism.

How? What advantage does socialism impart?

I go to work, and get paid (benefit to me) to help produce a product used by millions of people (benefit to society). See, it works.

Could you please let me define my own case, rather than trying to force me to defend anarchist capitalism? Please?

Essentially every response that you have made to me has been an attempt to get me to defend some sort of anarchist capitalism.

I think we all know the familiar old meme: The burden of proof is on the claimant.

I am asking for the people making the argument that worldwide socialism will solve all sorts of problems to specify how that is supposed to happen. I'm not arguing an alternative. I am just asking for your argument to be stated. The only independent positive position I have taken in this thread is in favor of local autonomy, and you and I haven't even discussed that.

How come you're allowed to partner socialism with democracy to solve problems, but you insist on trying to make me argue a purely capitalist system with no government?

And the burden of proof is on the claimant....

It's fine if you don't know, just admit it and we can move on. I just want to know why the people who are advocating world socialism are doing so.

The two aren't mutually exclusive you know.

Well, in the US, which you gave as a perfect example earlier, there are grants that almost anyone with low income can get to go to college which cover almost all expenses, as long as they don't already have a 4-year degree. I know lots of people who went to school on these grants. I even know a single mother who is going to school with these grants and paying rent with city assistance. They may not pay for expensive private schools, but they'll get you the education you need to get paid the big bucks.

Is it socialism? Yes. Do I have a big problem with it? No. Does that make the US a socialist nation? Not really. It's just kinda somewhere in the middle.

Well, I agree with you there. Education is a great antidote for religion.

No government is immune from corruption. Money is one mechanism, but power itself is certainly enough.

If only. I'd love to see the US broken up, I think it's too big for the amount of power it wields.
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Waiting to be tarred and feathered for that comment...
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In fact, I believe I heard that the US was worst in the world, followed directly by Canada. But I'd never be able to locate my source on that. My point is, it's not such a problem that it's all over the place. The numbers are vastly smaller than the number of people dieing of heart disease and cancer.

There are some racial problems in some areas that we've never fully sorted out. That's a social problem first, and leads to an economic problem. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

Perhaps in rare cases. I don't know, I don't have any data on how common this is, do you?

So what motivates the individual to do anything?

That's an argument against a world government, not socialism. You'll notice that the only standalone positive position I've taken in this thread is that autonomy should be local. If the Swedes and Norwegians like their socialism, let them have it (even if it does mean that religion continues to be sponsored by the state), and let other areas choose their economic systems for themselves as well. Open the economies to trade, free movement and employment, and intellectual exchange, and you've got the makings of prosperity without the tyranny of the (vast) majority.

I know very well how capitalism works, and I'm not mischaracterizing anything.

Obviously it wouldn't. The institution of any new economic or social policy ends up in a generation or two of difficulties at least. Once that period is over however, things can run smoothly. And better than they did before. France is a perfect example of such a change, though it was social instead of economic.

Me either, and I have nothing against the democratic process. I just see it working a lot better with a socialist economy than a capitalist one.

Not if democracy were modified to work with socialism instead of capitalism, and was decentralized. Much of the beaurocracy could be eliminated. All positions of power would be figurative, not material. The people would have the voice, not the man or woman.

I think eliminating positions of personal power altogether is the ideal solution, which is what would happen in what I see a social democracy accomplishing.

I know, but a government is restrained in it's restraining of capitalism. All the rich need to do in order to maintain their riches is buy off those in power. Or use their funds to become those in power. When was the last time a middle class guy ran for office? Lower class? This wouldn't be an issue in a socialist democracy.

Granted. My splitting of your paragraph allowed me to infer you were talking about capitalism, not greed, in that sub-section. It's my error, and I apologize.

I do not do this, but I can understand how you might think I do due to my poor response.

No economic pressure on government by individuals or organizations wielding more authority than the common man or woman.

You go to work, produce a product, and get paid a fraction of the value of the product. People 4 or 5 levels above you make 10 times as much money and contribute substantially less. With socialism, work value gives more benefits instead of postition value giving more benefits.

That's not my intention. I'm talking about western society as it is, not as it would be as an anarchist society.

I'm attacking capitalism itself, not anarchy. Though I'd do that just as surely, since it tends to use capitalism.

That sounds like a book. I honestly don't have that much time. I've had to spread this response over two shifts already.
Most of the improvements are self evident however, explained in the definition of the term socialism. A look at Cuba can show how good a health care and education system can be with a socialist economy. If you have any specific questions I can do my best to answer them, but I can't be expected to lay out an entire global economic policy on a forum.

I'm not. I'm showing you how the good things you point to have nothing to do with capitalism, and how they could be more effective and efficient under socialism.

My claim is merely a counter claim, made with equal vagueness to the original.

I don't know how to apply it morally. THat doesn't mean I don't know how to do it at all, or that I don't know how it would work if applied.

World socialism would have the same benefits as local socialism, as long as it was decentralized enough.

Never said they weren't.

Grants aren't available to everyone. Nor are they always easy to get.

Which is why you remove personal power. If an elected representative is only a representative than they have no power themselves. In our societies they make a campaign and are elected upon it, then further that campaign whether flawed or not. In a socialist democracy they'd merely be appointed officials doing the demands of the people. They wouldn't have the power to make huge decisions without consulting the public. As it should be.

Me too. Britain, China, and Russia also.

When cities start making policy on getting homeless people off the street(via police, not help), it's all over the place.
The rest is more problems that could be solved faster in socialism. Instead of looking for symptom maskers or treatments, pharmaceuticals would search for cures. Instead of charging $15,000 for a 1 mg pill, it would be available free to those who needed it. The researchers wouldn't lose anything as they are financed by the people in the first place.

Racism is a problem largely based in a lack of education, which would be better under socialism. It wouldn't necessarily fix the problem, but it would likely relieve it.

No, but I know it happens. I've spoken to people it happened to. That it happens is enough.

The same thing that motivates in a capitalist society: survival and enjoyment of living. Despite the claims of the average capitalist supporter, socialism does not remove motivation to work.

That is a position I agree on. I believe a government should be decentralized. I don't think people in Texas should be able to decide what goes on in Moscow, for example. But there's no reason that Texas and Moscow shouldn't work together on a global issue like land mines or pollution.

You can have free movement and employment and intellectual exchange in a socialist economy. Trade wouldn't necessarily be an issue in such a society.