One-world-government

[Sinister Intents]

What would occur to a state that covers and dominates the whole of the globe? I feel like it'd fragment into smaller states under its own weight and size. Protests and riots would probably erupt and the states would continue to crumble until some equilibrium gets met. I feel it'd go similarly to the Roman empire, the British empire, and so on. To where it'd be short lived if a one-world-state were even possible. Certainly Socialism-in-one-Country would tank similarly, where a massive state splits and peels apart into many fragments that would certainly contain individuals that would bicker and piss and moan and fight over their petty nation. The conquerors would still conquer.

[Creative Destruction]

sounds about right.

[Sinister Intents]

sounds about right.

So, I essentially answered my own question?

[Creative Destruction]

i mean, anything can happen. but, yeah, that sounds plausible.

[Sinister Intents]

i mean, anything can happen. but, yeah, that sounds plausible.

Alrighty.

A one-world-state I would imagine would be horribly bureaucratic and centralized, in need of a massive army and police force, with terrible policies that solely benefit those at the very tip of the pyramid. I doubt it'd last at all before, like a massive spiderweb, it collects a huge amount of shit and collapses onto itself, wreaking havoc on the world. It just seems incredibly impossible for a one-world-state to occur.

What's the maximum size a state can reach? How long on average do states survive? What factors would be necessary for one state to dominate globally?

[Tim Cornelis]

It's so obvious it wouldn't work, I'm not sure why conspiracy theorists are so afraid of it.

Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_overstretch

[Sinister Intents]

It's so obvious it wouldn't work, I'm not sure why conspiracy theorists are so afraid of it.

Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_overstretch

They're delusional?

[Tim Cornelis]

Okey yeah.

[Rafiq]

What would occur to a state that covers and dominates the whole of the globe? I feel like it'd fragment into smaller states under its own weight and size. Protests and riots would probably erupt and the states would continue to crumble until some equilibrium gets met. I feel it'd go similarly to the Roman empire, the British empire, and so on. To where it'd be short lived if a one-world-state were even possible. Certainly Socialism-in-one-Country would tank similarly, where a massive state splits and peels apart into many fragments that would certainly contain individuals that would bicker and piss and moan and fight over their petty nation. The conquerors would still conquer.

This assumes that the Roman, and British empire were attempts at cross-national political unity in a vacuum. The Roman empire was more than an entity which encompassed large territories or different nationalities. It relied on a system which fundamentally perpetuated nations and national differences, even if it meant their subjugation. Likewise the British were never interested in assimilating their territories completely, as a matter of fact, the traditional conservative elements of the societies they colonized often were the running dogs of colonialism.

I think the overall point is that nations simply do not exist as a collection of people who like living with each other. We should remember that history learns nothing from history - there are traumatic historical events which simply render centuries old customs and traditions obsolete in a single night because the social foundations for such customs no longer exist. Nations themselves do not exist because they HAVE existed but because their existence is PERPETUATED by existing conditions. The Jews and Kurds of today have nothing to do with the Jews of biblical times, or the Kurds of the 13th century. Language and custom may be in common between an ethnicity of a previous social epoch, and an ethnicity today but that does not mean they are the same - in that they have a completely different function and place within the existing global totality.

So what is the point? The point is that a trans-national state serving as the summation of several different proletarian dictatorships globally is very possible.

A good example here is the Soviet Union - all of the problems regarding nationally based politics was simply that these were not proletarian dictatorships but territories being presided over, modernized - whatever. Even then, by the end of industrialization, the Soviet Union, whatever problems it may have, was firmly united. One thing that's interesting is that when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, they generally were of the idea that the Soviet Union would break into tiny little pieces following the turmoil and chaos that comes with war. With exceptions (some ethnic groups were more prone to collaboration with the enemy than others, in hopes of autonomy) - the different nations of the Soviet Union generally fought on behalf of the Soviet Union as a political entity, not on behalf of their respective nations.

Not to get off track - "Why then did the Soviet Union (not to mention Yugoslavia) break along national lines at the time of its collapse, then?" would be a logical question here. I would say for the same reason that 20th century Communist states - the overwhelming force of the global capitalist apparatus contradicted Communism - logically barbarism, or conflict on national or ethnic lines follows with the de-legitimization of prevailing ideology.

Which leads us to yet another point: We already do, in a way, live in a one-world government and there does exist something akin to a global state. Capitalism as a global phenomena necessitates a global state. We now speak of "rogue states" or illegitimate entities within this totality. World hegemony is a real thing, so in a way we could call the future forseeable conflicts as a battle for the global state apparatus (I.e. between Russia and the West - you can see that Russia is no longer simply a rogue state, it has ideological implications in the west a la Euro-skepticism among other reactionary trends).

[John Nada]

This kind of reminds me of Kautsky's theory of ultra-imperialism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-imperialism), that a few capitalist nations could peacefully exploit the world.
What Marx said of capitalism can also be applied to imperialism: monopoly creates competition and competition monopoly. The frantic competition of giant firms, giant banks and multi-millionaires obliged the great financial groups, who were absorbing the small ones, to think up the notion of the cartel. In the same way, the result of the World War between the great imperialist powers may be a federation of the strongest, who renounce their arms race.

Hence from the purely economic standpoint it is not impossible that capitalism may still Jive through another phase, the translation of cartellization into foreign policy: a phase of ultra-imperialism, which of course we must struggle against as energetically as we do against imperialism, but whose perils lie in another direction, not in that of the arms race and the threat to world peace.Source: http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1914/09/ultra-imp.htm

Lenin was very critical of this theory, to say the least.
Therefore, in the realities of the capitalist system, and not in the banal philistine fantasies of English parsons, or of the German “Marxist”, Kautsky, “inter-imperialist” or “ultra-imperialist” alliances, no matter what form they may assume, whether of one imperialist coalition against another, or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers, are inevitably nothing more than a “truce” in periods between wars. Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out of wars; the one conditions the other, producing alternating forms of peaceful and non-peaceful struggle on one and the same basis of imperialist connections and relations within world economics and world politics. But in order to pacify the workers and reconcile them with the social-chauvinists who have deserted to the side of the bourgeoisie, over-wise Kautsky separates one link of a single chain from another, separates the present peaceful (and ultra-imperialist, nay, ultra-ultra-imperialist) alliance of all the powers for the “pacification” of China (remember the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion[13]) from the non-peaceful conflict of tomorrow, which will prepare the ground for another “peaceful” general alliance for the partition, say, of Turkey, on the day after tomorrow, etc., etc. Instead of showing the living connection between periods of imperialist peace and periods of imperialist war, Kautsky presents the workers with a lifeless abstraction in order to reconcile them to their lifeless leaders.Source: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch09.htm

Post-Cold War is probably the closest the world has come to ultra-imperialism. However as we can see now, imperialist powers will clash. Try getting the US, France, China, Russia, UK, and Germany to permanently agree on peaceful joint exploitation(a contradiction). Even better try getting them to hold on to their neo-colonies(ie Vietnam and Iraq). Shit you can't even get the only two parties in the US to agree most of the time, and they're both economic neo-liberals and imperialist.
It's so obvious it wouldn't work, I'm not sure why conspiracy theorists are so afraid of it.The NWO conspiracy is very similar to the "international Zionist conspiracy" of the past. It's just dropped the blatant antisemitism. Many of them think it's the plan of Satan and the Anti-Christ. So yeah, not reality based.

[David Warner]

The answer obviously depends on what kind of "state" one is talking about? This is impossible for a capitalist/imperialist state to do.

But let's say, centuries from now, if every single state (etc.) on the planet has reached a developed form of socialism, and uneven development (the root of imperialism) has been completely eliminated -- thus, no state has sufficient power to exploit another state (even if it wanted to) -- then this might be possible. However in that case it would probably cease to be a conventional "state" as is understood today.