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Comment by philippnagel | Hacker News Reader

Democratic accountability does not depend upon the size of an entity. Instead it relies on how said entity is internally structured (e.g. direct democracy vs. more representative models) and how prone to corruption it is.

Personally I think nation states are rather burdensome. In business one has to handle countless different legal and tax frameworks while fundamentally every human has comparable needs. Why operate ~196 governments when one government would suffice? The inefficiency is just mind boggling in my opinion.

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> Why operate ~196 governments when one government would suffice?

I don't disagree with your inefficiency comment, but upsides are diversity of trying things in 196 slightly different ways, 196 chances to fail without thew whole system going down, and the opportunity for individuals to move to a place that is most inline with their personal philosophy.

>the opportunity for individuals to move to a place that is most inline with their personal philosophy

There are very, very few people who are lucky enough to base their current country on their personal philosophy.

I see no evidence one government would suffice. There's too much diversity in the world, of both the politically fashionable kinds and the kinds that are currently politically unfashionable to acknowledge but don't cease to apply because of that. Even the EU is frequently criticized for instance for the difficult-to-the-point-of-impossible task of tying together all of its economies under one currency, just to give one example of major structural issues it raises, and is at the very least under a lot of stress, if not outright coming apart. If you can't even integrate Europe you can forget about running the whole world under one government. The EU is your best case.

Valid points but I have some objections.

What you described is mostly descriptive while I argued purely normative. That doesn't make your arguments less true but we have to acknowledge the different viewpoints. The problem with the EU is that is not a government, stuck in some sort of limbo in-between sovereign European states and people that would like to see a fully integrated European government. I myself living in Germany would like to see such a European government if the structural issues within the EU are solved (e.g. lack of democratic legitimacy of the European Commission).

I agree with you on the currency issue. But it is solvable through more European integration and solidarity. In the US for example some states are economically weaker, while others are economically stronger. A fiscal union allocates federal taxes to the weaker ones, in order to ease economic differences. Such a model should be considered in the EU.

What worries me most about the current state of the EU is the pessimism. Yes, there are pressing issues and controversies but instead of choosing isolation (e.g. Poland and possibly the UK) we should rebuild and innovate what fundamentally is a rather successful project. Prosperity and peace are at an all time high. These all time highs are in danger now but can't be solved through reverting back to national states. Problems are global now and therefore have to be solved globally.

"What you described is mostly descriptive while I argued purely normative"

A normative claim that the world "should" have one government when there's no way to make it work is just fantasy. Nonexistent options don't figure into the moral calculus. If the EU can't be made to work it certainly can't be extended to the entire world. You think the stress of the EU is going to be lessened when it is outvoted on every issue by Asia?

Every major centralization of power right now is under huge stress and in serious danger of flying apart at the seams in the next couple of decades. There's no current "world government" option.

> "fundamentally every human has comparable needs"

That assumption has been at the core of some wonderful experiments in the 20th century, and the people who had the fortune to live under regimes based on that assumption showed their preference for moving to exactly the alternatives that the assumption is trying to exclude. Or tried to do so and got killed by the people who knew what their true needs were.

I think you misunderstood. Care to elaborate on experiments?

"comparable needs" does not necessarily refer to tangible goods. The central needs are probably freedom and a justice system protecting individual rights and us from each other, not e.g. everyone driving the same car.

"Why operate ~196 governments when one government would suffice?"

Same reason ships have separate compartments in the hull, so if one floods they all don't. Basically it is not wise to put all your eggs in one basket.

>Spaceship Earth now has 150 admirals. The five admirals in the staterooms immediately above the ship's fuel tanks claim that they own the oil. The admirals with staterooms surrounding the ship's kitchen, dining rooms, and food refrigerators claim they own all the food. Those with a stateroom next to a lifeboat claim that they own the lifeboat, and so forth. They then have an onboard game called balance of trade. Very shortly the majority of admirals have a deficit balance. All the while the starboard-side admirals are secretly planning to list the boat to port far enough to drown the portside admirals, while the portside admirals are secretly trying to list the boat to starboard far enough to drown the starboard-side admirals. Nobody is paying any attention to operating the ship or steering it to some port. They run out of food and fuel. They discover that they can no longer reach a port of supply. Finis.

-Buckminster Fuller

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