Financial Times: One world government is plausible

The Financial Times of London had a very interesting piece on December 8, 2008 titled, “And now for a world government.” One might expect this kind of conclusion from Evangelical Christians and one might expect this kind of thing in a satirist type article, but this is a serious article coming from a respected secular newspaper in London.

According to the author of the piece, Gideon Rachman,

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

Rachman goes on to list and explain three reasons why he believes the EU is a model for a world government, but says the problem for world government proponents is that most people are stubbornly local when it comes to their political identity.