A Globalist Agenda

This dismal year has spawned many new words, among them Globalist. This was one of the barbs Trump used to discredit Clinton and Obama. Somehow being a globalist was being unpatriotic, for unrestricted trade and pro elite.

Then my own prime minister, the increasingly unimpressive Theresa May, chose to take a pot shot. In her conference speech, she claimed: “But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means”.

Well thanks for that, Theresa, so much for the values of the enlightenment. Apparently the original reference for this sort of sentiment was in the nineteenth century, when it was used to pillory the “rootless Jew”.

I have long considered myself primarily a citizen of the world, one with a UK passport. And this anti-globalist talk made me think further about the concept of the nation state and nationality.

The nation state is an artificial human construct. Most of the evil in the world today stems directly from the division into nation states and the barriers and restrictions and conflicts that generates. I will go further – it is at the heart of the last great repression of our time.

Thankfully, the last hundred years or so have seen the dismantling of most of the systematic repressions in the world. We no longer talk of colonies. Women now have similar rights to men. There is a global concept of human rights. Religion and sexual preference is increasingly seen as a private matter. Race no longer automatically condemns one group to subordination by another.

These are magnificent victories, though none is complete and recent political events may pause progress in some areas. But progress in each is cause for celebration. In each case, reactionaries tried to block change, using specious arguments of genetic superiority, legal ownership and impracticality of change. In each case, these arguments have been increasingly shown to be what they are – shameless attempts to maintain unwarranted privilege.

Isn’t nationality exactly the same? What gives one group dominion of one bit of land and its bounty, and the right to deny access or citizenship to others? Of course we need some local form of governance for administration, but nationality is used much more menacingly than that. How different is it really from slavery, an attempt to codify unjustifiable rights for an arbitrarily chosen sub-group? Think about it.

I look forward to a time in one or two generations when a passport carries about as much significance in life as a driving licence, and where a social security card feels more like a bus pass. Slowly or suddenly, whether through war or enlightenment, education or human mingling, the Trumps and Mays will eventually be replaced by globalists.

How can we speed things up? Well, I took to wondering what an agenda might be of an incoming US president who truly was a globalist. Not someone who had no pride in his or her nation, not someone trying to exploit some elite advantage, but someone committed to the benefit of humanity and the breaking down of the final great repression of nationality. In these depressing times, I found the exercise rather uplifting.

The starting point would be an audacious goal. By 2050, 95% of humanity would belong to a club of nations with free movement of goods, people services and capital. The EU already has these freedoms, and the US aspires to join by 2025 and all other nations are free to join when they wish. There will need to be transitional arrangements, and there may need to be some economic limits, for example the liability for benefits may remain with an emigrants source rather than destination for a period.

Another group of nations, which hopefully will converge to the same group, will be a subset of the United Nations with tighter connections. This group commits to ratify all existing UN statutes, including the human rights declaration, law of the sea and international criminal court. The governance will be equalised, with no vetoes and representation based on regional population rather than power or history or GDP. Existing economic institutions such as the WTO and IMF will be integrated into this club. Again, transitional arrangements will be necessary, and joining members must undertake not to sue other members for any past misdemeanours. The US aspires to be a founding member of this club by 2025.

A key role of this new club of nations will be collective defence. 50% of all defence assets will be immediately assigned to collective control, as will 75% of all future defence investments, including people, and 100% of all special assets such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, with full disarmament of such assets a goal to be achieved once all nations with such capabilities have joined the club. Covert and Special Forces are included, and all activities of these forces deployed within the club will be made transparent.

Individuals and firms from the economic club of nations may trade their national passport for a new international one, in order to be eligible for the full benefits of the four freedoms. Corporate taxation policy is ceded to the international club, and so is some individual taxation policy, but nations retain significant control of their currencies and most social and economic policy, so long as they operate within boundaries set down by the economic club. Stated goals of the economic club include environmental sustainability, equality of opportunity for citizens and transitional support for the historically disadvantaged and those adversely affected by change. 

This world feels eminently attainable and wonderfully desirable. What stops it from happening?

The obvious first blocker is the current global political climate. To change that depressing tide might require demonstration of failure of the petty nationalism of today, even via wars. But what would be great if some courageous politicians and parties were able to start making the positive case for a more integrated and fairer world. This may happen sooner than we think. Already, disgruntled liberals are starting to understand the challenge involved.

The second blocker is the US itself. The economic and defence clubs would have to include the US to be viable, yet be designed in such a way to entice China and India to join. This is currently a big stretch for the US, but a few more humiliations at the hands of the Chinese might change things quickly. It could be argued that the major inhibitor for the US currently is its stance on Israel, which would be incompatible with the defence alignment. So perhaps the US attitude to Israel and the Middle East is the domino that would have to shift in order to set things off in the right direction.

If the US, the EU, China and India all joined, it would be overwhelmingly in the interests for nearly everyone else to join too. The only holdouts would be Russia and places like North Korea and some African dictatorships, and the publics of these nations would eventually topple those regimes too. This dream is not as hopeless as it might seem. And I for one find positive dreams somewhat comforting in these times.