I’m curious to know what libertarian / anarcho-capitalists think of the idea of World Government? (I know it’s kind of condratictory)
Of course there are many avenues in which to travel down in this regard, but specifically, how do you view it in in terms of relating to personal freedom and economic freedom?
I still haven’t developed my own thoughts on this subject to the point where I feel like I have a solid stance. On the one hand, I feel as though truly Free Trade spanning the world would greatly benefit inhabitants of the planet by making goods and services cheaper and more abundant. However would we need a world government established to make this happen? Some argue that it is an enevitable path to follow. However it seems to be that participating in Free Trade could be extemely simple if we didn’t have corrupt politicans running the countries. Also, where do you draw the line in subordinating national boundaries for economics?
I subscribe to the idea that politcal unification of the world would lead to tyranny, and of course as the traditional crique of World Government goes, where then will you run to? (Not to mention the possibility of creating a 1984 enviorment). I believe in the notion that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and while there seems to be some politicians who are “good”, history shows that the vast majority are corruptable psycopaths that will do anything to climb their way to the top.
Then of course you have the problem of ethnicity and national traditions. If a truly world government were to be established, what then would happen to these cultures? The most logical path I see that would follow is that they would naturally be destoryed, morphing into a world culture that all inhabitants adopt. The fallout from this process would be tremendous as the people of the planet loose their heritage and individuality.
I’m glad you raised this topic. I don’t have time now for a lengthy reply, but I’ll just say that we are already well on our way to world government, and it is the goal of many of the world’s most powerful leaders. We already have a European Union that is eroding national sovereignty, national heritage, and patriotism, and it looks like a North American Union is next.
It all comes down to what type of world government. Right now we’re headed to global feudalism in which rights are granted or denied by a group of elite leaders who want total control. On the other hand, a world government that existed to protect individual liberty might be a good thing.
I understand the argument and am certainly aware of bodies like the UN and the EU, but I’m not so convinced anymore that it could ever come to pass. Six billion people are a lot to control, afterall, and humans innately identify into tribal/family/village groupings (as evidenced by history). What would a small cabal of ‘overlords’ expect to gain by constantly fighting the inevitable bushfire wars, revolts and revolutions across the world?
The Star Trek Federation was great for a TV program, but unlikely in light of overall human behaviour.
A more likely future for the world is the collapse of entities like the EU, thanks to Greece et al, and a return to 19th century nationstates fighting over borders, resources and ‘realpolitik’.
Thanks for your reply. I’m also aware of the move towards world government, however I didn’t want to open the topic with that kind of stance.
Do you think a world government run by “benevolence” could ever exist? Where would you go if the government became corrupt?
With all the problematic habits of small national governments, I find it hard to imagine a world government free from these, with their only goal being to protect liberty.
Is a world authority in and of itself a contradiction to personal liberty? By this I mean that it is restricting the individual from choosing among countries in which to live in thus creating a monopolistic environment? I find it interesting that the right to choose where you want to live (what government you want to live under) can have the same free market principles of competition applied to it as-well.
If national governments can’t protect liberty why would we think a world one could?
Also, their definition of “protecting liberty” could mean a strain of Socialism, in which that case it again falls into tyranny.
I think a one world government is preferable to what we currently have, because then war would be abolished, which is massively destructive. And this is why I don’t think it will ever happen, the military industrial complex doesn’t want it to happen. It would also eliminate immigration laws, and the world would finally recognize everyone as just humans, rather than Americans/Canadians/Germans/South Americans/etc.
“Do you think a world government run by ‘benevolence’ could ever exist?”
Not for long, even if by some miracle it started out that way. World government is a horrible idea and isn’t worth the price to be paid even if it totally ended warfare as we know it. Without competition there would be no incentive to do a better job, to innovate, or to restrain yourself. Monopolies are bad and ones on government are far worse than anything in the private sector.
This is a good answer. World government like the Federation where everything is benevolently managed from Geneva by some bureaucratic elite is communistic fiction. Afterall, to arrive at that they also abolish people’s material wants, apparently (if Star Trek: TNG is any indication) and re-engineered man into ‘Star Trekkian Man’ or somesuch. On the same token, a worldwide totalitarian regime is highly suspect, considering how expensive it would be to maintain, for a start.
Eitherway, humans would divide themselves along ethnic, economic, social or cultural lines in the inevitable collapse of such monolithic regimes.
Well, we have had world governments in history, specifically, the Roman and (debatably) British empires which “spanned the civilized world.”
Governments are the enemy of free trade.
Yes, I recall a quote from Paul Warburg to that effect.
Well, if we accept a principle of unlimited secession, then the smallest political unit would be the individual.
World government is not really possible, in my opinion. Political unification works for the same reason soldiers defect on the battlefield and start fighting with the winning side… better to accept a low status and remain alive than to be dead. But there is a limit to this process. As political units aggregate into larger and larger blocs, as they have been for a couple centuries now, parties divide their loyalties along the lines in which their interests coincide. Since many parties have inherently conflicting interests, there will inevitably be a multiplicity of political blocs which stand in competition (in the absolute sense) with one another. These interests cannot be united for the same reason a cartel is unstable in the absence of coercion. Each political bloc already maintains its own security perimeter, essentially inviolable by other political blocs, so that it is impossible for the competing blocs to “coerce” each other into a binding unity pact. The only path forward to absolute unification is subjugation by one bloc of all the other blocs. But the arithmetic simply doesn’t add up… if the world unites into, say, 5 political super-unions, then any one of those super-unions would have to defeat all four others to boost itself into world empire status. It just doesn’t make sense.
In the end, the ultimate unit of power, in my opinion, is the family. Families form the ultimate security perimeter and economic calculation unit. This is why monarchies and feudal societies were dominated by powerful families. Things are no different today except we largely don’t know who the ruling families are because they stay out of the limelight and operate in the political realm through intermediaries.
Political union always results in the extinguishing of the subjugated cultures. It has to because cultural heterogeneity is a security threat to the dominant political unit.
It’ll never happen short of some out-of-touch, rich-as-god misanthropes pulling the trigger on nukes or bioweapons and decimating humanity. I have no doubt there are super-rich idiots with exactly these sorts of Biblical plans but there are countervailing forces.
Yep. War is the health of the State… or, in other words, the State is War. It lives and dies by war. Who would “the enemy” be if we had a world government? Terrorists? Aliens? Without an enemy to fight, there is no ultimate rationale for a State.
What about the “rebels,” criminals and drug dealers. A state breeds on violence and coercion, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be against another state.
Well, an enemy state is the only entity which can be well-funded enough to justify the subjection of the whole nation to the tyranny of total war. To maintain a state of economic control equivalent to that which pertains during total war, only an enemy which is another state will do.
Have you ever talked to a socialist? Or a communist?
Hoppe has a lot to say about this topic. Centralization = less means for people to escape, and so less obstruction to loot. A world central government and a world central bank would mean the biggest amount of inflation the world has ever seen.
As to some people earlier: just because there would be no war (which.. of course there would be war, there would be a world war on drugs, IP theft, etc, etc) doesn’t mean there would be no state crime. Just because there would be order doesn’t mean we would be better off. The reason is because there are two types of order: market order and ordered extortion (and under a world government there would be ordered genocide).
These are answers to mber’s questions from an earlier post. I just started using this form and I’m too stupid to figure out the quote thing, so I’ll just paraphrase the questions as I answer.
I don’t think a world government run by “benevolence” could exist. Looking around us now, it seems like the only way to implement world government is through mass murder and deceit. Therefore, I think libertarians should oppose world government except in the distant future or in fantasy land. The Ender’s Shadow series by Orson Scott Card is an entertaining look at how a somewhat benevolent world government might come into existence. A teenage genius basically convinces everyone to join The Free People of Earth and stop fighting each other.
I don’t think a world authority in and of itself is a contradiction to personal liberty. Let’s say a truly benevolent world government existed that only protected life, liberty, and property. People couldn’t choose between countries, but this wouldn’t be a restriction of liberty if there were no countries. You can’t have a monopoly on a product that doesn’t exist. People would instead be free to live in whatever community across the globe they wanted. That being said, many people on this forum think that any state authority period contradicts liberty.
“if national governments can’t protect liberty why would we think a world one could?”
I think national governments or a world government could both theoretically protect liberty, although national governments have much more potential in the real world. The best historical example we have is America, which worked pretty well for a few hundred years. I think we could construct a better model that could protect liberty for maybe twice a long before needing replacement, as long as it was limited to protecting life, liberty, and property, and was constantly monitored by individualists. G. Edward Griffin suggests we call this model a protectorate, since the word government implies positive action.
The definition of “protecting liberty” is extremely important, as you point out. It would have to mean “protecting the life, liberty, and property of each individual - nothing more.”
In summary, I think people need to delegate some form of organized defense. I am still on the fence about whether we need complete anarchy - entirely private defense organizations, or if the state can be tolertated if limited to defense. One could argue that any form of organized defense is the state. I am completely sure that in the context of reality, not science fiction novels, a world government means tyranny and should be opposed.
In response to the people who think a world totalitarian regime is impossible or would collapse, I would like to completely agree. But if you closely follow the current trend toward world government, it’s scary how possible it seems:
Yes, it is expensive to control 6 billion people, but the world’s banking systems have been destroying the wealth of us commoners for centuries. Where is all the money going? To the very people who want to control the world. These are the banking dynasties - the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, J.P. Morgan groups, etc. and their cronies. What are they doing with the money? Figuring out ways to control population by wiping people out, figuring out how to microchip people, subjugating or buying off any opposition, buying and manipulating elections, making sure the dictators in third world countries stay in power, creating useful enemies like terrorism and global warming to keep people in fear, etc.
“The only path forward to absolute unification is subjugation by one bloc of all the other blocs.”
There is one bloc in America that is subjugating all the others, and it is the bloc of collectivism. Through organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, which are controlled by the banking dynasties with all the money, collectivists influence all the power centers of society: political parties, the CIA and FBI, the mainstream media, the universities, the labor unions etc. Even though this bloc is in the minority, they are leading us to world government while the other blocs don’t realize it and squabble about other issues. Most CFR members and collectivists don’t know whose really in charge, and they are well-meaning, but they are still leading us to tyranny.
At the upcoming climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico in November 2010, the leaders of the world’s industrialized countries will probably sign a binding treaty to reduce carbon emissions. This would set up a bureaucratic structure centered at the UN with power over national sovereignty in the name of enforcing the treaty. In other words, it would create a world government.
It looks like we will see the answeres to some of these questions in our lifetime. Maybe I have been brainwashed by visting too many conspiracy websites, but I’ve found some good research and think the conspiracy is real. After all, conspiracies have always determined the course of history. In the long run, I don’t think a tyrannical world government will control us for eternity, even if it gains a good hold. I think freedom will ultimately prevail in most battles, but only if we join the fight.
I really wish I were more spiritual and believed that all the horrible problems in the world meant nothing compared to reaching enlightenment and becoming one with God.
By “political bloc” I mean specific persons, that is, individuals, families and social networks. The Rockefellers, Harrimans and Rothschilds might all have confluent (cooperative) interests on issue X but all have divergent (competitive) on issue Y. I see no reason to believe that they have more confluent interests than divergent interests, in fact, quite the opposite. And once you get past the Caucasian networks and look at the global picture, it is even more competitive. Do you really think the Arab royal families will screw themselves over joining some “one world government” pipe dream? They might play along so long as they’re getting money or other power benefits out of it, planning all along to double-cross once it comes time to pay the piper. At the pinnacles of power and wealth in every country are individuals who are under no illusions about the true nature of power and money. They “get it”. They’re the ones who are scamming the unwashed masses. It’s the same in every country. How do you scam the scammers?
My theory of international politics is simple. It’s just like gang turf or wars between rival drug cartels. Sure, one gang can grow in power and influence for a time. They might employ better weapons, better training and techniques, they might be better at corrupting cops and other local officials, etc. etc. But anybody can play that game and once the other gangs figure out what the resurgent gang is doing to beat them, they’ll start copying and the unilateral advantages will be nullified. Or, they’ll infiltrate the dominant gang and bring it down from the inside. Yes, America is in a very dominant position right now and has been since the close of World War II. But it would be naive to think that the gang lords throughout the rest of the world have not been scheming and plotting how to bring down the gangsters in Washington or copy whatever strategies have contributed to Washington’s power. Can the Chinese economic liberalization be interpreted in any other light? Do you think that Beijing suddenly became overwhelmed with humanitarianism and decided to make free market concessions to the public? The State and, more importantly, the power interests behind the State only ever act in such ways as they believe will increase and consolidate their power. Do you think that Beijing or the Saudis care about the mental masturbation of CFR types about One World Government or a “New World Order”? Each power center will accept a world government under exactly one condition… that the world Capital be its Capital. Every gang lord will agree in principle to one big cartel… on condition that he be the head of the cartel. Some of the scammers might be stupid enough to fall for the one-world government baloney. But the smartest ones will just play along for the incentives and then double-cross. I think that’s what happened at Copehagen, with the CRU “hack-in”. TPTB seemed to have been completely blind-sided by that. Someone torpedoed the Copenhagen agreement. Whoever did it was really just engaging in a classic case of cartel defection.
Thanks for the reply. Everything you said makes a whole lot of sense. How did you develop your theory of international politics? Any reading recommendations? I have only been researching this stuff for about a year, and it’s difficult to find people who really know what’s going on.
Here are some more questions and concerns:
Much of your argument hinges on the specific interests of powerful “individuals, families, and social networks.” You think that since these interests diverge for the most part, rulers will never cooperate in a world government. It seems to me that the best way to understand someone’s interests is to look at their actions. I have not done much research on the world’s ruling elite. Right now, I don’t see how the interests of say the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds would differ all that much. They both have all the money they could ever want. Now they both want power. Throughout history, they have both acted in a similar manner to achieve power. Since they don’t care about being in the limelight, I don’t think they care about being Supreme Leader at the expense of each other. Could you provide examples of where the interests of ruling families diverge and why this would prevent world government? What are issues X and Y?
You have argued that “Every gang lord will agree in principle to one big cartel… on condition that he be the head of the cartel.” You also said “a cartel is be unstable in the absence of coercion.” But what if there is sufficient coercion to keep the cartel intact. The coercion of the US government has kept the Federal Reserve cartel intact for a long time. Many other cartels have succeeded throughout history. Why couldn’t a world government cartel succeed likewise? What if all the world’s nuclear weapons came under the contol of a single family or bloc of interests? What could the other blocs do about it?
“It’ll never happen short of some out-of-touch, rich-as-god misanthropes pulling the trigger on nukes or bioweapons and decimating humanity. I have no doubt there are super-rich idiots with exactly these sorts of Biblical plans but there are countervailing forces.”
Even if the misanthropes didn’t pull the trigger, couldn’t they control everybody if they had all the nukes and bioweapons?
Although it runs counter to your theory of family blocs, G. Edward Griffin has come up with a theory of world politics that also makes a lot of sense. He thinks there are basically two competeing camps of collectivism: Fabians and Leninists. The Fabians originated with the Fabian Society in the 1800s and the secret society set up by Cecil Rhodes upon his death in 1902, and they operate in the Western nations through the CFR (America), Royal Institute of International Affairs (England) and other groups. The Leninists are communist rulers - the leaders of Russia, China, etc. You can watch a video of Griffin’s analysis here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRKpiNp-IYc
These two branches agree that a world totalitarian regime is desireable, but they disagree about who should run it. So far, it seems they have been mostly cooperating in order to destroy individual liberty, and I don’t see the trend stopping.
The Saudi Royal Family is an interesting example. I don’t know much about them. They are obviously “playing along for the incentives,” but do they have any real power to oppose a move to world government? Haven’t they already been bought off by the transnational corporations who industrialized them in return for oil money? Aren’t they already in the pocket of the Fabians? What is their military strength?
You’re probably right about Copenhagen. Who would you guess “torpedoed” the treaty? What do you think will happen at the next conference in Cancun? I have seen a supposedly leaked document that states the US will try to pass the treaty: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/12/us-document-strategy-climate-talks. What do you think this means? I think the whole purpose of the Conferences is to give the UN authority that trumps national sovereignty in the name of implementing emissions cuts. Global Warming is just a myth to get us to accept more control. I hope someone will torpedo the next agreement as well.
For the average person, is there really a differnce between a truly world government with a single leader and a small group of competing blocs that fight each other? The result either ways seems to be zero freedom. Are we just arguing semantics?
Sorry this is so long (I’m not expecting you to anwer everything!)
What has happened to the independent cultures within the United States? Everything is just peachy? There is nothing concrete to support a suggestion that a world government would end cultural differences, including violence.
The dawn of a world government is the sunset of individual liberty. To maintain control, a world government would be forced to be totalitarian. A totalitarian regime has no problem in terrorizing the individual. It’s the reason why most anarcho-capitalists don’t even like a minimal government.
Well, please don’t mistake me as someone who “really knows what’s going on”… I have no inside track. But, this is one of my absolute favorite subjects, so I spend some my free time reading and thinking about it. As for reading recommendations, I wrote an article on the US worldwide financial empire here, I especially recommend the linked article by Dr. Hoppe. Also, read Rothbard’s Anatomy of the State for a justification of my “gang theory of international politics”… he doesn’t say it in so many words but that’s essentially what Rothbard is saying: the State is just a bunch of thugs in 3-piece suits.
Well, I suspect that oil interests are one of the big divergences. The Rockefellers moved in fast and early on oil exploration, drilling and pipelining. I don’t know what the Rothschild’s stakes in oil interests are and how early they moved in but I do know that they are some of the biggest funders of the whole “alternative energy” movement, including many of the global warming proponents and green organizations. Google “Maurice Strong” for more information, look into the hands-on activity of David de Rothschild in the global warming debate and ecological movement, and so on. What does “alternative energy” mean other than “anything but oil”?
But this is just speculation. Leaving aside specifics, we can go back to the human condition to see why the world’s most powerful people have fundamentally divergent interests. Humans have an unlimited demand for satisfaction of their wants and (what is the same) alleviation of their suffering. Rich people are no different than poor people in this regard. The only difference is that the wealthy are in a better position to achieve satisfaction of their wants and alleviation of their suffering. You might say, well, once you can eat at the most expensive restaurant every day of the year, live in the largest mansions or finest hotels every day of the year, fly by the most expensive means of transportation and communicate over the most expensive and sophisticated channels, etc. etc. what else is left? How can someone demand more than what they can possibly consume? The problem is that we mistake the means with the ends. Food, housing, hotels, telephones, etc. are all things, they are means, which people use to achieve ends. The end is always the satisfaction of some want or the alleviation of some suffering. But since the demand for this satisfaction is unlimited, more wealth can always be turned to the greater satisfaction of these ends.
The example I like to use is Dick Cheney. Cheney has heart trouble and I remember there was a news article that discussed the medical team which followed him 24/7 as VP. There was always an EMT on hand with a defibrilator and a team of other doctors was on standby in the event Cheney had a cardiac emergency. Now, humans have an unlimited demand to stay alive and one of the means for staying alive is medical care. The availability of instant medical care confers a specific psychological benefit, namely, peace of mind. If you think about it, who wouldn’t want a full-time doctor on standby at all times in the event of a personal medical emergency? Of course, to have such a valuable thing you have to have a spare doctor’s salary, that is, you need to have a good $150K-$300K per year to spare.
Returning to the issue of divergent interests, one of the chief means of achieving the psychological benefit of peace of mind (the alleviation of anxiety) is through security - the securing of one’s person (through security devices, bodyguards, etc.) and the securing of one’s property. But security need not be purely defensive, it can be expanded to the aggressive or criminal mode, that is, the plundering of the property and injury of the persons of others. Security is an inherently antagonistic problem… securing my property against your invasion means preventing you from enriching yourself at my expense. Like the demand for medical services to alleviate anxiety, the demand for security services is unlimited. But unlike medical services, security interests are inherently antagonistic. The bigger my army, the more likely it is I could invade your property, so the bigger your army needs to be.
I believe that the security problem is one of the most important issues that defines the divergent interests of the most wealthy/powerful families throughout the world. The elite families in every region control certain markets or political territories (turf) and seek to use the public treasury, whether through manipulation of the state legal system, state security system, state financial system, etc, to fund enforcement of their territory. Think about changes to the US tax law. Let’s say you’re one of the 5 wealthiest families in the US. Small changes to the US tax law can make a big difference to your family’s net income. Will you not notice if some change to the tax laws occurs and you end up taking a 20% hit in income? Would you not seek to identify who pushed for that rule change, and interpret it as an aggressive action, an attempt by some other power interest to squeeze you out of the market or seize your income? Could you not fund your own cabal of lawyers and lobbyists to levy for retributive changes in the tax code to hurt the interests who hurt you? Would you both not have an incentive to then come to the table and bargain some kind of legal cease-fire, or even to cooperate to shed your tax burdens onto those who don’t have controlling interests in the government?
Such power alliances are core of the wealth-power networks in every region, IMO. These alliances might be within borders, across borders or both. It makes no difference. The important thing to realize is that the politics that is visible to you and me is largely artificial. Real politics runs beneath visible politics on a substrate of brute reality beyond right and wrong. And, in this realm, I think family is everything, just as it is in the mob. Any other organizational structure is susceptible to infiltration and is, therefore, an inferior security unit to the blood-relation family. Family relations are non-counterfeitable and betrayal of family loyalty is genetically selected against. No other organizational structure has this built-in security feature.
I wish I could give specific examples but, in the modern era, this is complicated by the fact that the most wealthy and powerful families, to the best of their abilities, mask, hide, downplay and conceal their true wealth and power. This is a simple result of the end of monarchy at the beginning of the 20th century. Monarchies and aristocracies were vulnerable exactly because the power structure was out there in plain view for everybody to see. The wealthy and powerful were fixed targets, sitting ducks. Mob sentiment could be mobilized by subversive powers to take down established powers. Nowadays, nobody wants to be perceived as an “established power” for exactly this reason. That’s why you’ll never see a Rockefeller or Rothschild in the Forbes list even though everybody knows that the Rockefeller and Rothschild families are rich as God. They do what it takes, legally and otherwise, to conceal their wealth in order to protect themselves. It’s only common sense, when you think about it.
But all this simply tells us that we can learn a great deal about the nature of power and wealth and how they interact with family and politics by reading the history books. The big difference between the monarchical age and the modern age is that, today, power and wealth are concealed where in the past, they were less so. I see no reason, other than the accidents of technology and the increased need for privacy, to believe that power and wealth operate by very different rules today than they ever did.
Please note that my ideas are heavily influenced by Dr. Hoppe’s writings and lectures (hence my avatar), most of this is not original to me. This lecture, in particular, has been particularly formative on my thinking.
Well, again, we’re talking about the world’s most powerful, wealthy and paranoid people in every region of the globe. How could one group get so far ahead, in terms of power, wealth and security as to be able to not only weaken but completely infiltrate and take down the most sensitive security objects of every other power group in the world? I have no doubt there could be groups with such aspirations but I do doubt very much that their achievements could match their aspirations.
Be careful with the word “they”. I think it is a categorical mistake to assume that every power group has confluent interests with every other power group. Yes, the elites in every region want to control and enslave the masses under their realm of influence to the service of their own interests. But nukes, international banking, oil conflicts, intelligence agencies and so on have nothing to do with controlling the masses and everything to do with protecting and expanding the turf of one power group at the expense of another. Controlling the masses is a matter of controlling the flow of information and perverting the culture to promote the ends of the ruling elites. Race and religion also play a big role here (it’s pretty easy for a Chinese power group to shoot down a white power group exercising power over Chinese masses and vice-versa… elites of different races have extreme difficulty penetrating each other’s power bases because of the natural suspicion humans have towards people of other races).
I can’t comment for or against Griffin’s theory. I’ve heard his theory of a Rhodesian secret society and he may well be right on that and other accounts. Secret societies are a kind of security organization but, in the final analysis, I still think they can’t hold a candle to the blood-relation family. At the end of the day, members of a secret society are only cooperating with one another because they each believe their interests are thereby being furthered. They have no intrinsic reason to remain loyal to one another and no good reason to expect unconditional loyalty from the other members of the secret society. I don’t think secret societies rule the world, I think families and groups of families do. The identity of the families and the identity of the groups of families may be secret or difficult to ascertain. They may operate through fronting organizations such as political action groups, charities, non-profit groups and corporations, fueling the idea that the world is run by secret societies. There are fraternal orders that wield very real power… the Jesuits, national intelligence organizations, and other secret fraternal orders. But I don’t think any of these groups can wield final or ultimate power because they are all more susceptible to defection or infiltration than the blood-relation family.
This is a perfect illustration of my previous point. Do you really think the interests that bind together an impersonal corporation are stronger than the family ties of the Saudis? Do you think corporate board members or brothers are more loyal to one another? Do you think a CEO or a family patriarch has a longer-term vision and greater interest in preserving the assets under his management? I’m not saying powerful families, like the Saudis, can’t be buffaloed by those possessing greater wealth and power than themselves. But I think we tend to get the cart and the horse reversed. The root of power is in the families. The corporations are just legal instruments for organizing those power interests and providing a privacy screen to prevent the public and other power groups from ascertaining exactly how much wealth is held and where it is located. This makes it harder to seize. The French government seized the wealth of the French Rothschilds after World War II which should serve as an object lesson to similarly situated families - keep your shit out of sight and spread it around through multiple legal/political jurisdictions and be sure to have leverage within that legal/political system to help keep your stuff safe.
It’s hard to say. At first, I suspected the Russians but who knows. I think that the primary beneficiary from a world government would be the US empire so it is obvious that the US and its allies are pushing for passage. Whoever’s interests are opposed to US empire (Russia? China? South America? Arab states?) could be candidates for having shot down Copenhagen. We’ll see if TPTB have some new trick up their sleeve to deploy later this year. It will be interesting to watch.
Absolutely, the difference is huge. The more competition there is between tyrants, the more relaxed their economic controls must be to prevent capital flight. Modern wealth is “diversified” across legal/political systems to insure against nationalization, inflation, windfall taxation and other fates. This is an unmitigated positive for individual freedom. In other words, the poor benefit from the crumbs of freedom that fall from the table of the rich. If the rich are more enslaved, the poor are that much more enslaved. We should always oppose moves toward greater political centralization.