The intensifying cascade of global crises including intractable wars, massive human rights atrocities, nuclear proliferation, climate change and environmental degradation, the growing inequality between the rich and the poor, recurring bouts of global financial instability, and the increasing risks of pandemics to name but a few, call to mind the warning sounded by Arnold Toynbee, one of the most highly-regarded authorities and foremost experts on international affairs and world history in the 20^th century, that humanity would be faced with an existential crisis followed by his recommendation as to what we, the family of nations, should do in response. 

Toynbee contended that in the atomic age, humanity would have to choose between political unification and mass-suicide. He believed the chief obstacle to political unification was a long-standing destructive habit of the West which he referred to as the habit of “divisive feeling” to which we tended to easily succumb as opposed to reaching for our more recently adopted habit of “world-mindedness.”  The good news, he said, was that just as new habits could be adopted, old ones could also be modified or abandoned. He stressed that as a general rule we humans would opt to abandon even our most deeply rooted habits once it became clear that clinging to them would spell disaster. 

He recommended that we replace our outworn habit of divisive feeling with a new habit of common action on a world-wide scale through the creation of some form of limited world-state that would be empowered to act in humanity’s collective interest in certain narrow fields of endeavor. Already, as far back as the 1970’s, he believed that the global community needed to engage in common action on a world-wide scale in at least two areas: to control atomic energy through a World Authority and to administer the production and distribution of food through another World Authority. Now, 50 years hence, we can confidently add climate change to this list.

Toynbee predicted that global circumstances we unwittingly created through our technological advancements would eventually force us to submit to a limited world government once we realized it was our only hope for salvation in the face of an existential threat. He believed we would wait until the 11th hour before making a radical shift to establish such a government even though we would do this kicking and screaming all the way.

He was very clear in recognizing our visceral fears about and knee-jerk reaction in opposition to a world government that might become a draconian centralized bureaucracy imposing its will on local governments around the world. He made the following compelling arguments to dispel these fears.

First, that a world government should be minimal and should be limited in its sphere of action. World leaders should therefore confine the authority of a world government they established only to that which was strictly necessary for their self-preservation right now. 

Second, he stressed that in the atomic age, world government should come about voluntarily through the mutual consent and cooperation of world powers rather than by force. He warned that any attempt to impose political unity by force would be ineffective as it would only lead to stiff resistance and a resurgent nationalism as soon as an opportunity to revolt presented itself.

Third, the prerequisite for such an endeavor to succeed lay in the universal adoption of an ideology of world-mindedness that we had never achieved before.

Toynbee believed that the structure of a limited world state would likely be a federal one in which previously independent units would voluntarily come together in a global union. He argued that this was the most likely scenario given that states generally prefer to preserve their identity and retain their autonomy to act locally; they would likely be willing to cede some power to a world government only in limited areas in which it served their collective interests to do so.

Finally, he believed that humanity needed to forge some unity of thought as to what constituted right and wrong. In other words, it was necessary to adopt a shared set of moral values that would serve to harmonize the disparate social and cultural heritages that had evolved independently of each other over the course of human history. Without fundamental agreement on moral issues he argued, it would be difficult to achieve political unification.

Given the rapid disintegration of countries and societies around the world and the accelerating fragmentation and polarization that are rending apart the fabric of our global society, is it not time for us to step up and make the choice to collaborate, cooperate and deepen our integration as a global society? To this end is it not time we take a step in the direction of collective maturity by voluntarily consenting to political unification by forming a limited democratic federal world government? Imagine what we could achieve if we engaged in collective and consultative decision-making to meet the pressing needs and the greatest global challenges of our time as opposed to opting for what Toynbee coined the “Great Refusal” that would inevitably result in carnage and devastation on a scale never before seen.

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Sovaida Maani Ewing, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is an international lawyer, author and the founding director of the Center for Peace and Global Governance.

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