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From: lkk@teddy.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: World Government
Message-ID: <1473@teddy.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Oct-85 15:23:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: teddy.1473
Posted: Mon Oct 21 15:23:27 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Oct-85 07:42:41 EDT
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Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass.
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Someone flamed me a while back for my claim that non-trivial economies couldn't
exist without government.  I was then told that there was a world economy, but
no world government, so there.  Since that message arrived on a busy day, I
didn't have a chance to respond.  Here goes.


I claim there IS a de facto world government.  Or rather, there are
organizations which provide many of the same stability providing services.

There are a number of treaties and international organizations that provide
stabliizing and controlling influences on world commerce.  These include GATT,
the World Bank, and the International monetary fund.  While you might point out
that these are all "voluntary" organizations, we once again see a case where
lack of explicit coercion is not the same as voluntary.   Poor countries have a
choice, join or go bankrupt.

There are a few countries in the world (most notably the USA and the USSR),
which are so much more powerful than all the others that they are in effect the
plutocracy of the world.  The actions of the President of the United States
have a tremendous effect on virtually everyone in the world.  THe economic and
military might of the US and USSR have tremendous influence in maintaining
foreign markets for those nations, insuring that contracts are respected, and
the like.

In prior times, France, Britain and Portugal served in these capacities as
world governor.  Prior to that, there was very little in the way of
international trade (although there was quite a bit of powerful countries
taking advantage of smaller ones.)


Now I'm not saying that the current world economic order is good.  Just that 
it only exists because there are de facto governing authorities which allow it
to exist.

-- 

Sport Death,
Larry Kolodney
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