A More Perfect Union

Intro­duc­tion to June 2009 IJWP

Our lead arti­cle by James Yunker sug­gests ways in which global gov­er­nance could be improved, ways that could cre­ate a “more per­fect union” than the League of Nations, or the United Nations, which he com­pares to the Arti­cles of Con­fed­er­a­tion of the United States. This more per­fect union would involve three prin­ci­ples not present in the world gov­ern­ment pro­pos­als of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury. First, vot­ing prin­ci­ples must be changed so that an invol­un­tary redis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth could not occur. Sec­ond, there should be an inalien­able right to with­draw from the Union. Third, each nation should be allowed to keep what­ever mil­i­tary power they desire.
These three prin­ci­ples are essen­tial if nations are to retain their auton­omy and make their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Fed­eral Union vol­un­tary. The alter­na­tive, which many fear would fol­low from an invol­un­tary Union, would be a tyran­ni­cal world gov­ern­ment, pos­si­bly con­trolled by a mega­lo­manic like Hitler. These prin­ci­ples par­tic­u­larly res­onated with me because in my book, Life Lib­erty and the Pur­suit of Hap­pi­ness, Ver­sion 4.0, I advo­cate sim­i­lar prin­ci­ples in my sug­ges­tions for the reform of the United States, includ­ing the restruc­ture of con­gress, a (con­di­tional) right to secede, and more auton­omy for mem­ber states. What peo­ple fear would hap­pen to world gov­ern­ment has been devel­op­ing over time in the U.S. gov­ern­ment: it is less account­able to its cit­i­zens and redis­trib­utes their wealth in ways they do not sup­port.
Thomas Jef­fer­son was a staunch oppo­nent of con­sol­i­dated gov­ern­ment and sought to cre­ate a fed­eral union in which the lower lev­els of gov­ern­ment con­trolled the higher lev­els, not the inverse, which becomes tryanny—regardless of its out­ward struc­ture. Free elec­tions are only gen­uine if the cit­i­zens put forth the can­di­dates, not if wealthy oli­garchs or inter­est groups give the peo­ple their choices for whom to vote. In a truly free world, peo­ple want to pur­sue their own des­tiny. In a truly peace­ful world, they must pur­sue that des­tiny in ways that do not harm oth­ers.
When the Dutch won their free­dom from the Span­ish Empire, they would not agree to a gov­ern­ment unless it allowed reli­gious free­dom. When the states of the United States rat­i­fied the Con­sti­tu­tion, most did so with the under­stand­ing they had the right to with­draw from the Union. This is no dif­fer­ent than an indi­vid­ual work­ing for a com­pany who wants the right to leave that com­pany if he feels exploited. It is no dif­fer­ent than the right to leave a mar­riage or fam­ily if one is beaten and abused. One does not want to have his own des­tiny invol­un­tar­ily con­trolled by oth­ers, but wants to expe­ri­ence joy and per­sonal mean­ing in the one life he is given.
This issue like­wise applies to the rela­tion­ship of tribal and com­mu­nity groups in Pak­istan to each other and to their state gov­ern­ment. In our sec­ond arti­cle, Nas­reen Akthar dis­cusses the rela­tion­ship of a national ideal to state gov­ern­ment. It was easy for Moslems in India to agree on cre­at­ing a state in which they could be free to pur­sue their lives as Moslems. How­ever, after the state of Pak­istan was formed it was run by oli­garchs and mil­i­tary lead­ers from the top down. Indi­vid­ual cit­i­zens, com­mu­ni­ties, and tribal groups feel left out of the process. Some groups feel so dis­en­fran­chised or zeal­ous in their own pur­suit of power that they want to desta­bi­lize the régime or destroy the state.
Akthar argues that the mod­ern top-down nation-state is a struc­ture imposed by Euro­pean colo­nial­ism and does not con­tain the cul­tural seeds of democ­racy within its his­tory. She refers to it as being con­structed by the “prim­i­tive accu­mu­la­tion of pow­er” with­out polit­i­cal legit­i­macy. In her view, devo­lu­tion of power and gen­uine par­tic­i­pa­tion of cit­i­zens and smaller polit­i­cal groups  is essen­tial to build­ing a peace­ful and more demo­c­ra­tic Pak­istan. In this respect, she is address­ing the same issue as Yunker does with world gov­ern­ment. The flow of power must be from the bot­tom upward, and not from the top down. Cen­tral and higher gov­ern­ments can accom­plish some func­tions more appro­pri­ately than smaller units, but they must be given their man­date from the smaller units rather than impos­ing their will or using their posi­tion for self-gain.
Akthar points out dif­fer­ences between cul­tural iden­tity and ide­ol­ogy, between reli­gion and state, and nation and state. The impo­si­tion of a par­tic­u­lar way of life upon the state becomes the impo­si­tion of the state on all its peo­ple. Inevitably many feel dis­en­fran­chised and view the state as pre­vent­ing them from equal demo­c­ra­tic par­tic­i­pa­tion. This is the very rea­son Pak­istan left India in the first place. Thus the state needs to devolve pow­ers related to iden­tity to lower-level com­mu­ni­ties and focus on ter­ri­to­r­ial secu­rity for all peo­ple to prac­tice the way of life they choose, so long as they do not deprive oth­ers of the free­dom to do the same.
Our third arti­cle by Pilvi Torsti points to a fail­ure of inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions to pro­mote peace­ful demo­c­ra­tic val­ues in Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina  after the “eth­nic cleans­ing” and breakup of the Yugoslav Fed­er­a­tion in the 1990s. Eth­nic rival­ries had been kept in check by the strong mil­i­tary régime of a uni­fied Yugoslavia, even if some groups were favored above oth­ers under that régime. There were inter­mar­riages and migra­tions within Yugoslavia that pit­ted neigh­bor against neigh­bor and brother against brother when the Fed­er­a­tion dis­in­te­grated, leav­ing strong ani­mosi­ties. One hope of resolv­ing some of this hatred was through pub­lic schools and the edu­ca­tion of the next gen­er­a­tion.
Torsti argues that, twelve years after the con­flict ended, pub­lic school text­books were pro­mot­ing war-like edu­ca­tion with the eth­nic biases, and adding con­tin­ued hatred to the gen­er­a­tion that was sup­posed to over­come it. Inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions charged with mon­i­tor­ing text­book con­tent, failed to do so ade­quately. One rea­son for this prob­lem is that the school cur­ricu­lum was decen­tral­ized and res­i­dents cre­ated text­books on the local level, reflect­ing their eth­nic biases. It is an exam­ple of the devo­lu­tion of power in a cli­mate of dis­trust cre­at­ing what Thomas Hobbes called “the state of nature.”
Per­haps it is nat­ural to retrench totally to the tribal and com­mu­nity rela­tions known through per­sonal inter­ac­tion when the legit­i­macy of a larger polit­i­cal régime is lost. Larger polit­i­cal enti­ties, not formed by con­quest, arise from a social con­tract when smaller com­mu­ni­ties and states real­ize that it is advan­ta­geous for com­mon secu­rity or admin­is­tra­tion of com­mon resources, like rivers, on a larger ter­ri­tory. This idea of a social con­tract vol­un­tar­ily entered may even­tu­ally arise in the for­mer Yugoslavia, but is as dif­fi­cult to impose from the top-down as it is for teach­ers to dic­tate to stu­dents who their friends will be. Neigh­bor­ing peo­ples will need to want to work together, and text­books that view oth­ers fairly can improve chances for future coöper­a­tion.
The right to secede, or the right to with­draw from a union is the ulti­mate check and bal­ance on the absolute power of the higher polit­i­cal unit. In the case of a world gov­ern­ment, that would be a monop­oly on the entire world—the type of dom­i­na­tion Hitler would have sought and most peo­ple fear. If mem­bers with­draw from a union, it shrinks or col­lapses like any orga­ni­za­tion based on free asso­ci­a­tion. How­ever, polit­i­cal unions, like mar­riages, often cre­ate new oblig­a­tions like chil­dren and joint prop­erty. I might sug­gest, beyond what James Yunker has writ­ten, that with­drawal might need to be con­tin­gent upon meet­ing prior oblig­a­tions of the con­tract, in a way that causes min­i­mal harm to other parties.

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Finally, I must point out that in March 2009 we learned of the loss of major grant sup­port for Inter­na­tional Jour­nal on World Peace. Since its incep­tion, IJWP has always required grant sup­port to sup­ple­ment our low sub­scrip­tion price. We have been grate­ful to those who have pro­vided this sup­port. We need to find addi­tional fund­ing in order to con­tinue the jour­nal at the level of the last two years. As a result, this issue has been short­ened from the 160 pages that we had in the March 2009 issue to 96 pages in this one. We have also changed the printer and type of cover used on the jour­nal to reduce pro­duc­tion costs.
We hope to find new sup­port that can enable us to bring more arti­cles to our read­ers and to con­tinue to present arti­cles with view­points often not rep­re­sented in other jour­nals that can help read­ers under­stand global issues. Any help will be appre­ci­ated, and sup­port is tax-deductible in the United States. We wel­come any indi­vid­ual, group or foun­da­tion support.

Gor­don L. Ander­son
Editor-in-Chief