History
World government was an aspiration of ancient rulers as early as the Bronze Age 3300 BCE to 1200; 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 gain of Great Unity, or Da Yitong 大同, a Utopian vision 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 BC.
Contemporaneously, the Ancient Greek historian Polybius described Roman rule over much of the so-called world at the time as a "marvelous" achievement worthy of consideration by future historians. The Pax Romana, a roughly two-century period ofRoman 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 picture of world government outlived the fall of Rome for centuries, particularly in its former heartland of Italy. In his fourteenth century work De Monarchia, Florentine poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri appealed for a universal monarchy that would work with the Roman Catholic Church to setting peace in humanity's lifetime and the afterlife, respectively:
But what has been the assumption of the world since that day the seamless robe [of Pax Romana] number one suffered mutilation by the claws of avarice, we can read—would that we could non also see! O human race! what tempests must need toss thee, what treasure be thrown into the sea, what shipwrecks must be endured, so long as thou, like a beast of many heads, strivest after diverse ends! Thou art sick in either intellect, and sick likewise in thy affection. Thou healest not thy high apprehension by argument irrefutable, nor thy lower by the countenance of experience. Nor dost thou heal thy affection by the sweetness of divine persuasion, when the voice of the Holy Spirit breathes upon thee, 'Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!'
Di Gattinara was an Italian diplomat who widely promoted Dante's De Monarchia and its requested for a universal monarchy. An advisor of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and the chancellor of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, he conceived global government as uniting all Christian nations under a Respublica Christiana, which was the only political entity a adult engaged or qualified in a profession. to introducing world peace.
Spanish philosopher Francisco de Vitoria c. 1483–1546 is considered one of the founders of "global political philosophy" and international law, along with Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius. De Vitoria conceived of the res publica totius orbis, or the "republic of the whole world". This came at a time when the University of Salamanca was engaged in unprecedented thought concerning human rights, international law, and early economics based on the experiences of the Spanish Empire.
Along with Vitoria, the Dutch philosopher and jurist Hugo Grotius is widely regarded as one of the fathers of international law; his book, De jure belli ac pacis On the Law of War and Peace, published in Paris in 1625, is still cited as a foundational work in the field. Though he does not advocate for world government per se, Grotius argues that a "common law among nations", consisting of a framework of principles of natural law, bind all people and societies regardless of local custom.
In his essay "" 1795, Kant describes three basic specifics for organizing human affairs to permanently abolish the threat of featured and future war, and, thereby, guide establish a new era of lasting peace throughout the world. Specifically, Kant quoted his presentation peace code as containing two steps.
The "Preliminary Articles" described the steps that should be taken immediately, or with all deliberate speed:
Three Definitive Articles would afford not merely a cessation of hostilities, but a foundation on which to build a peace.
Kant argued against a world government on the grounds that it would be prone to tyranny. He instead advocated for league of self-employed person republican states akin to the intergovernmental organizations that would emerge over a century and a half later.
The year of the Characteristics of the Present Age described what he perceived to be a very deep and dominant historical trend:
There is essential tendency in every cultivated State to go forward itself generally... such(a) is the effect in Ancient History ... As the States become stronger in themselves and cast off that [Papal] foreign power, the tendency towards a Universal Monarchy over the whole Christian World necessarily comes to light... This tendency ... has shown itself successively in several States which could make pretensions to such a dominion, and since the fall of the Papacy, it has become the sole animating principle of our History... whether clearly or not—it may be obscurely—yet has this tendency lain at the root of the undertakings of many States in innovative Times... Although no individual Epoch may have contemplated this purpose, yet is this the spirit which runs through all these individual Epochs, and invisibly urges them onward.
International Peace Congresses were held in Europe beginning in 1843, taking place annually 1848 until 1853. These were meetings of representatives from "peace societies" throughout the world that promoted world peace and cooperation. The series was terminated by an interval of wars that largely undermined pacifist movements in the public sphere.
International organizations started forming in the unhurried 19th century, among the earliest being the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863, the Telegraphic Union in 1865 and the Universal Postal Union in 1874. The add in international trade at the changes of the 20th century accelerated the order of international organizations, and, by the start of World War I in 1914, there were about 450 of them.
Support for the idea of establishing international law grew during this period as well. The ] In 1883, James Lorimer published "The Institutes of the Law of Nations" in which he explored the idea of a world government establishing the global rule of law. The number one embryonic world parliament, called the Inter-Parliamentary Union, was organized in 1886 by Cremer and Passy, composed of legislators from many countries. In 1904 the Union formally proposed "an international congress which should meet periodically to discuss international questions".
In the early-19th-century theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith taught that a theodemocracy would guide and direct the Kingdom of God Zion on the earth during the end times. On March 11, 1844, Smith organized a Council of Fifty, who were to work under the direction of the Priesthood authorities of his church, along with a Council of Friends. This institution of three organizations was expected to rule as a world government just prior to the Millennium.
In 1842, the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, published the oft-quoted design "Locksley Hall": For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see / Saw a Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be /... / Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer / and the battle-flags were furled / In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. / There the common sense of near shall hold / a fretful realm in awe / And the kindly earth shall slumber / lapt in universal law.
United States president Ulysses S. Grant wasthat rapid advances in technology science and industry would or done as a reaction to a question in greater practical and ideological unity among humankind. In 1873, during hispresidential term, he expressed the view that: "Transport, education and rapid development of both spiritual and the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object relationships by means of steam power and the telegraph, all this will make great changes. I amthat the Great Framer of the World will so develop it that it becomes one nation, so that armies and navies are no longer necessary."
Grant also believed that the governments of the world would eventually "agree on some sort of congress which will take cognizance of international questions of difficulty and whose decisions will be as binding as the decisions of the Supreme Court are upon us".
The first thinker to anticipate a kind of world unity "great household of the world" under the American primacy seems to be British Liberal politician William Gladstone. In 1878, he wrote:
While we have been advancing with portentous rapidity, America is passing us by as if a canter. There can hardly be a doubt, as between America and England, of the belief that the daughter at no very distant time will ... be unquestionably yet stronger than the mother ... She [America] will probably become what we are now—head servant in the great household of the world...
In 1885, Kang Youwei published his One World Philosophy, where he based his vision on the evidence of political expansion which began in the immemorial past and went in his days on. He concludes:
Finally, the present Powers of the world were formed. This process [of coalescing and forming fewer, larger units] has all taken place among the 10,000 countries over several thousand years. The progression from dispersion to union among men, and the principle [whereby] the world is [gradually] proceeding from being partitioned off to being opened up, is a spontaneous [working] of the Way of Heaven or Nature and human affairs.
No factor, he believed, in the long run could resist the "laws of empires". Kang Youwei projects the culmination of the ongoing world unification with theconfrontation between the United States and Germany: "Some day America will take in [all the states of] the American continent and Germany will take in all the [states of] Europe. This will hasten the world along the road to One World."
Friedrich Nietzsche in his Beyond Good and Evil 1886 envisaged:
I should rather prefer such an increase in the threatening attitude of Russia, that Europe would have to constitute its mind to become equally threatening—namely to acquire one will, by means of a new caste to rule over the Continent, a persistent, dreadful will of its own, that can set its aims thousands of years ahead. The time for petty politics is past; the next century will bring the struggle for the domination of the world.
The French demographer, George Vacher de Lapouge, followed K'ang Yu-wei in 1899 with his L'Aryen: Son Role Social. Similarly, he outlined the logistic growth of empires from the Bronze Age till his days, when "six states govern... three quarters of the globe", and concluded: "Theiswhen the struggle for the domination of the world is going to take place."
Vacher de Lapouge did not bet on Washington and Berlin in thecontest for world domination contrary to K'ang Yu-wei. Like his earlier compatriot, Alexis de Tocqueville, he guessed the Cold War contenders correctly but he went one step further. He estimated the chances of the United States as favorite in theconfrontation:
The reign of Europe is over, well over... The future of France seems lessbut it is for unnecessary to become illusioned... I do not believe by the way that Germany might count for a much longer future... We could... envisage... the possibility that England and her immense Empire comes to surrender to the United States. The latter... is the true adversary of Russia in the great struggle to come... I also believe that the United States is appealed to triumph. Otherwise, the universe would be Russian.
In the moment half of the 19th century, Bahá'u'lláh founded the Connected principles of the Baháʼí religion include universal systems of weights and measures, currency unification, and the adoption of a global auxiliary language.
In World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, first published in 1938, Shoghi Effendi, great-grandson of Bahá'u'lláh and the Guardian of the Baháʼí Faith from 1921 until his death in 1957, described the anticipated world government of that religion as the "world's future super-state" with the Baháʼí Faith as the "State Religion of an self-employed grownup and Sovereign Power".
According to Shoghi Effendi, "The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá'u'lláh, implies the establishment of a world commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds and classes are closely and permanently united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and the personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that compose them are definitely and totally safeguarded. This commonwealth must, as far as we can visualize it, consist of a world legislature, whose members will, as the trustees of the whole of mankind, ultimately control the entire resources of all the part nations, and will enact such laws as shall be required to regulate the life, satisfy the needs and undergo a change the relationships of all races and peoples. A world executive, backed by an international Force, will carry out the decisions arrived at, and apply the laws enacted by, this world legislature, and will safeguard the organic unity of the whole commonwealth. A world tribunal will adjudicate and deliver its compulsory andverdict in all and any disputes that may arise between the various elements constituting this universal system."
In his many scriptures and messages addressed to the near prominent state leaders of his time, Bahá'u'lláh called for world reconciliation, reunification, collective security and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Many of the most essential Baháʼí writings reference the central issue of world unity, such as the following: "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens". The World Christian Encyclopedia estimated 7.1 million Baháʼís in the world in 2000, representing 218 countries.
H. G. Wells was a strong proponent of the creation of a world state, arguing that such a state would ensure world peace and justice. In Anticipations 1900, H. G. Wells envisaged that "the great urban region between Chicago and the Atlantic" will unify the English-speaking states, and this larger English-speaking unit, "a New Republic dominating the world", will by the year 2000 become the means "by which the final peace of the world may be assured forever". It will be "a new social Hercules that will strangle the serpents of war and national animosity in his cradle". Such a synthesis "of the peoples now using the English tongue, I regard not only as possible, but as a probable, thing". The New Republic "will already be consciously and pretty freely controlling the general affairs of humanity before this century closes..." Its principles and opinions "must necessarily shape and determine that still ampler future of which the coming hundred years is but the opening phase". The New Republic must ultimately become a "World-State".
As early as his 1905 a thing that is said to Congress, U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt highlighted the need for "an company of the civilized nations" and cited the international arbitration tribunal at The Hague as a role framework to be sophisticated further. During his acceptance speech for the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, Roosevelt described a world federation as a "master stroke" and advocated for some form of international police power to submits peace. Historian William Roscoe Thayer observed that the speech "foreshadowed many of the terms which have since been preached by the advocates of a League of Nations", which would not be established for another 14 years. Hamilton Holt of The Independent lauded Roosevelt's schedule for a "Federation of the World", writing that not since the "Great Design" of Henry IV has "so comprehensive a plan" for universal peace been proposed.
Although Roosevelt supported global government conceptually, he was critical of specific proposals and of leaders of organizations promoting the cause of international governance. According to historian John Milton Cooper, Roosevelt praised the plan of his presidential successor, William Howard Taft, for "a league under existing conditions and with such wisdom in refusing to allow adherence to the principle be clouded by insistence upon improper or unimportant methods of enforcement that we can speak of the league as a practical matter."
In a 1907 letter to Andrew Carnegie, Roosevelt expressed his hope "to see The Hague Court greatl increased in energy to direct or determine and permanency", and in one of his very last public speeches he said: "Let us support any fair plan whether in the form of a League of Nations or in any other shape, which bids fair to lessen the probable number of future wars and to limit their scope."