World government
World government is the concept of a single political authority with jurisdiction over all of Earth and humanity. It is conceived in a variety of forms, from tyrannical to democratic, which reflects its wide array of proponents and detractors.[1]
This article is about notion of a single political authority for all other related concepts. For World government (disambiguation), see World government (disambiguation).
A world government with executive, legislative, and judicial functions and an administrative apparatus has never existed. The inception of the United Nations (UN) in the mid-20th century remains the closest approximation to a world government, as it is by far the largest and most powerful international institution.[2] The UN is mostly limited to an advisory role, with the stated purpose of fostering cooperation between existing national governments, rather than exerting authority over them. Nevertheless, the organization is commonly viewed as either a model for, or preliminary step towards, a global government.[3][4]
The concept of universal governance has existed since antiquity and been the subject of discussion, debate, and even advocacy by some kings, philosophers, religious leaders, and secular humanists.[1] Some of these have discussed it as a natural and inevitable outcome of human social evolution, and interest in it has coincided with the trends of globalization.[5] Opponents of world government, who come from a broad political spectrum, view the concept as a tool for violent totalitarianism, unfeasible, or simply unnecessary,[1][6][7] and in the case of some sectors of fundamentalist Christianity, as a vehicle for the Antichrist to bring about the end-times.
Pre-industrialized philosophy[edit]
Antiquity[edit]
World government was an aspiration of ancient rulers as early as the Bronze Age (3300 to 1200 BCE); ancient Egyptian kings aimed to rule "All That the Sun Encircles", Mesopotamian kings "All from the Sunrise to the Sunset", and ancient Chinese and Japanese emperors "All under Heaven".
The Chinese had a particularly well-developed notion of world government in the form of Great Unity, or Da Yitong (大同), a historical model for a united and just society bound by moral virtue and principles of good governance. The Han dynasty, which successfully united much of China for over four centuries, evidently aspired to this vision by erecting an Altar of the Great Unity in 113 BCE.[11]
Contemporaneously, the ancient Greek historian Polybius described Roman rule over much of the known world at the time as a "marvelous" achievement worthy of consideration by future historians.[12] The Pax Romana, a roughly two-century period of stable Roman hegemony across three continents, reflected the positive aspirations of a world government, as it was deemed to have brought prosperity and security to what was once a politically and culturally fractious region. The Adamites were a Christian sect who desired to organize an early form of world government.[13]
Dante's Universal Monarchy[edit]
The idea of world government outlived the fall of Rome for centuries, particularly in its former heartland of Italy. Medieval peace movements such as the Waldensians gave impetus to utopian philosophers like Marsilius of Padua to envision a world without war.[14] In his fourteenth-century work De Monarchia, Florentine poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri, considered by some English Protestants to be a proto-Protestant,[15] appealed for a universal monarchy that would work separate from[16] and uninfluenced[17][18] by the Roman Catholic Church to establish peace in humanity's lifetime and the afterlife, respectively:
There are a number of regional organizations that, while not supranational unions, have adopted or intend to adopt policies that may lead to a similar sort of integration in some respects. The European Union is generally recognized as the most integrated among these.[82]
Other organisations that have also discussed greater integration include:
In fiction[edit]
World government for Earth is frequently featured in fiction, particularly within the science fiction genre; well-known examples include the "World State" in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the "Dictatorship of the Air" in H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come, the United Nations in James S. A Corey's The Expanse, and United Earth (amongst other planetary sovereignties and even larger polities) in the Star Trek franchise. This concept also applies to other genres, while not as commonly, including well-known examples such as One Piece.