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The Death of the Nation State & World Governance

The nation state seem miniscule to address problems that the world faces today. We are in a time where solutions could not be addressed within the national boundaries. The problems the world faces today are similar to the problems Europe faced in the 18^th century and during the Industrial Revolution. Unemployment, social upheaval characterized Europe before the colonial campaigns for search of livelihood. The solutions will not be colonialism but a new world governance that is democratic, representative and no more or no less.

I will like to share with you three viewpoints which I came across in the last twenty years as a prelude to our topic of discussion about world governance. The first viewpoint I would like to share is how the Netherlands prevented the fragmentation of farmland below what it could sustain a single family. A Dutch gentleman once shared me the experience of The Netherlands in addressing farmland fragmentation many centuries ago. He said that once the land property reached undividable stage, through applying standard for its capacity to support a family, only a single offspring was entitled to inherit the land/estate. If a family had three children, one of the children will inherit the land and the other two have to go as soldiers or priests to the colonies or participate in the colonial campaign.

Europe and USA with a low birthrate and booming economy have avoided the menace of farm land fragmentation in the twentieth century. China has addressed the problem through the one-child policy.

          The second viewpoint I like to share with you is what you might have heard from the mass media but which I like to remind you before we discussed the issue of world governance. The financial crisis in developing countries is pushing some unemployed people to look for work in the less developed countries or their former colonies. People in the less developed countries migrate to the developed countries in search of work. The migration is for looking professional employment in the first case and daily labor employment in the latter. The future of world governance may rationalize, standardize and facilitate the movement of goods and people. 

          The third impressive development I witnessed in Ethiopia. In the highlands, the fragmentation of the miniscule land through inheritance to many descendants has made farming in smallholdings impracticable. The country has vast uncultivated land but cannot pass it to people from the highlands because of the land ownership law. Thus, Ethiopia tries to address its food problem by giving big tract of lands to foreign farmers. It tries to create non-agricultural employment for its unemployed and underemployed population through the informal sector. The distribution of land to foreigners is but condemned by human right watchers as land grab. The idea is a reminiscent of the nation-state mentality.

          I raised the three points in order to show the complexity of solutions to the problems the world faces at this point in time. All the three cases were nation-state driven. We are in a time where solutions could not be addressed within the national boundaries. There is a need to venture more than what the Dutch did centuries ago, the labor migrants of the modern world and think outside of the ‘nation-state-box’.

A.  The Rationale for Globalization

1.   As we said above, the problems the world faces today are similar to the problems Europe faced in the 18^th century and during the Industrial Revolution. Unemployment, social upheaval characterized Europe before the colonial campaigns for search of livelihood. The instrument for such expansion was the nation-state. The powers may clash against each other but their search for livelihood, market and raw materials were common to all of them. A nation state in today’s world could not sustain its population livelihood at the expense of other nations and people like the one during colonialism and empire expansion. A win-win approach amongst nations and people is to everybody’s benefits. If we take global problems "of nuclear war, traffic in armament, erosion of human rights, the international debt crises, worsening poverty in the underdeveloped world, international terrorism, over population, environmental pollution, and the militarization of space ...’’  the solution for the problems needs global approaches and mechanisms.

2.   The rational for globalization is the possibility of joint developments among and between nations. The building of infrastructures, the opening up of economic sectors in less developed countries could be done through joint effort of the developed and the developing nations. The people of both nations will be beneficiaries. Employment will be created for all of them. People will move from one corner of the world to the other for joint economic development and not for colonial domination and exploitation. This is not a new idea. It is an idea which its time has reached to be taken seriously. From the World federalists the Chicago Committee, more radically, provided for an extensive bill of rights and duties, a broad grant of powers, a world planning agency, and a clause permitting public purchase of business that had acquired the "extension and character of a transnational monopoly" (Bratta ibid; 8-9). The Minister of Development Mr. J Pronk during his address in Salon de ideas on November 1, 1991 forwarded a 14 points agenda, which suggested the establishment of an economic Security Council under the UN like the Security Council.

3.    The developed countries could not address their financial crisis and unemployment by employing their population in renewal of their infrastructure without triggering hyperinflation because of national currencies that are limited in scope. To address the problem there is a need for global understanding on the convertibility of all currencies to a single standard.

4.   The sustenance of the national framework has made the application of measures to hasten youth employment by decreasing working hours and decreasing the years for getting pension scheme had proved impossible in the developed world.  In the contrary measures are being taken to increase the age requirements for pension schemes. Unemployment anywhere has to be addressed globally than nationally.

B.  The possibility of Global Economic and Social Well-being

1.   Developments in the last two centuries have created conditions where people could freely move and countries cooperate for development. The United Nations systems, the different regional associations work to realize the economic and social well-being of the population of the whole world.

2.   Technologically it is possible to open new areas for development through infrastructure building, inducing technological and scientific application in modern farming and industry which if done concomitantly could lead to universal industrialization and urbanization and world governance.

3.   Politically, after the end of the Cold War, it was possible for USA to mobilize the whole world for a new governance where the UN grew into a world parliament with full power based on international constitution where every country would be subject to the an international constitution and judged in international court. That opportunity seemed lost in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the 8 big and  the 20 big ‘’persons’’ paradigms. The failure was starkly shown when consideration of the big eight and the big twenty powers was forwarded and a security council with twenty members was  considered as a democratic practice. It was not different from the cartoon by Sir David Low about the chair for five big persons while the three was occupied drawn to show the injustice of the 5 security council member structure in the aftermath of the Second World War. The chair for twenty big persons will also be undemocratic and a characteristic of an alliance of empires.

4.   An opportunity will come again as it had happened after the Second World War and the end of the Cold War. We should not lose that opportunity. We should get prepared for that opportunity.

C.  The way forward

1.   A new world order is the only way out for solving the crisis the world is facing at present. The economic problem is very threatening. It is disturbing more than the fear of atomic annihilation during the Cold War.

2.      The new world order has to unleash the slumbering developmental possibility that could be comparable to what the industrial society did during its rise centuries before. "The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together’’ (Marx). The new world governance based on international standards, international constitution and courts can take humanity to a new level of prosperity and bliss by opening employment opportunities for all and through  reconstruction and infrastructure development and scientific advancement.

3.   The way forward should not be a repetition of what happened in the aftermath of the Second World War. David Low’s cartoon of the time has depicted what happened to the League of Nations and the newly created United Nations when the idea of world governance based on federalism and egalitarian principles gave way to a national and group competition.

4.   Wars, upheavals, revolutions do not lead to democracy and world governance as it was proved in history and as we are witnessing in the Arab springs and the different battlegrounds in the name of democracy. The way for democratization is through the democratization of workplace and the larger society.

5.   The best guarantee for democratic development is the economic development, social advancement in legality, freedom, dignity and most of all sustained peace and social accountability of citizens’ and government to the welfare of all and each citizen. The individual citizen should be encouraged to stand for his right and for the right of others before legal courts and public places.  Legality will better lead to democratic practices than illegality and uprisings.

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 https://www.amazon.com/author/ethiopiannovelist