Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria views the financial crisis as an opportunity to make a back door attempt at implementing a world government. To want a world government, you must first love government in general. Here's Zakaria's ode to the state (emphasis added throughout):
As bad as it looks, the current financial crisis will end. I don't know when or how, but the combination of government interventions will eventually work. Why do I say this? Because governments are more powerful than markets. They can close markets down, nationalize firms and write new rules. And Washington has one other, unique power: it can print money.
Democratic governments obtain its power from the people. Whether that power is greater than the markets is determined by the citizenry. Unfortunately, Zakaria ignores the concept of power from popular will throughout his piece, Writing the Rules for a New World.
However, what is more noteworthy is Zakaria's assumption that power alone will solve the crisis. All the powers he listed can be disastrous as well as helpful, there's no reason to assume wielding it will lead to the latter. The ability to print money is especially dangerous (just ask a Zimbabwean).
With the need for the use of government power assumed, Zakaria next tries to reassure the hesitant that the coming intervention and regulation won't threaten capitalism. But, if you're not convinced, he's not listening:
... the current debate about government and markets is sterile. Every serious thinker understands we need both. The question is how to balance the two to achieve growth, innovation, stability and social equity. The crucial need is not for big government or small government but smart government. How can we make government work for the vast majority of people, for future generations, for the broad welfare of society?
Who knew it was so easy? There's no longer a need to bicker over big versus small - the issue is whether government is smart. You may wonder whether a smart government needs checks and balances or can abuse power, but Zakaria doesn't say.
In any event, all of that is prelude to some grander ideas. Zakaria thinks the real issues facing America involve continuing globalization, rising powers, and the possibility of instability (i.e., wars provoked by a threatened United States).
Most major powers share some basic interests and ideals with the United States. The real danger remains that Washington will overplay its hand, leading other countries to seek to balance it. The management of U.S. political and military power remains the single most important task for global stability. The United States must provide rules, institutions and services that help solve major global problems.
Can you see the global government argument forming? Zakaria provides an illustration as to why we need this:
Take a simple example like infectious disease. An outbreak today is almost guaranteed to quickly spread far and wide. That means we all have an incentive to determine the nature of the pathogen as quickly as possible, isolate the victims and work toward a cure. Ideally, the World Health Organization would be able to step in, require samples of the virus to be sent to it, make a definitive determination and set protocols to be followed. Unfortunately, it is underfunded, undermanned and lacks the authority to make rules that everyone must follow.
I hope you didn't buy Zakaria's 'forget big vs. small, we need smart government' argument. We're just a couple of graphs later and he's already lamenting that the WHO is underfunded.
As for the WHO's lack of authority: why can't it make recommendations, and governments enact them? Why does it need the power "to make rules that everyone must follow"? The United States is founded on the principle that those who make rules all Americans must follow should be elected and thus have the will of the people. Worldwide laws are not to be enacted by those appointed by Mr. Zakaria.
But, the real problem with his example is that a world organization charged with identifying an outbreak is completely unnecessary. The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC), one of the better government institutions around, is capable of doing much of what Zakaria proposes. When SARS broke out in Canada in 2003, the Canucks called the CDC, not the WHO. Zakaria is arguing for the U.S. to cede power to an organization to do something the U.S. is already the best in the world at doing. Does anyone think the WHO can do a better job in cutting edge research than the CDC? The WHO should stick to handing out anti-smoking pamphlets in the developing world and not be awarded the power to quarantine Americans, because the United States does provide "institutions and services that help solve" this global problem. Zakaria's atrocious example is bound to make one think he is ultimately more concerned with the U.S. relinquishing power to international bodies.
Zakaria does acknowledge in the piece the understandable resistance all nations have to ceding sovereignty, but asks: "what alternative is there?" My simple response to Zakaria's question is that he hasn't made the case that we need his alternative. Do we really need an alternative to the CDC? Zakaria doesn't make the case, because he's hiding his argument.
Zakaria's final plea:
The point is that unless we find ways to expand and enhance the rules and institutions of global cooperation, the world will experience more and more crises and the government responses will be hasty and ad hoc, too little, too late. If, on the other hand, we come together and work together on the common problems of humanity, imagine the extraordinary opportunities it could create for everyone. Imagine if we created new rules of the road that allowed this extraordinary process of globalization and growth to persist and spread to every section of society, raising standards of living and health for the poorest of the poor, allowing more and more people to develop their potential.
How much can we truly come together on, when even Zakaria acknowledges that the interests and ideals the U.S. shares with most other powers are only "basic." Moreover, basic humanitarian crises are usually met. When the 2004 tsunami wiped out the coast of Indonesia, who got aid on the ground first? The U.S. and Australian navies did. A 'common problem of humanity' solved through U.S. leadership. There is no reason to believe a U.N. navy would have done better. The crises that aren't met are blocked by a power at the U.N. (Darfur).
As for 'new rules of the road', Zakaria is too vague for me to comment on specifics. He never mentions global warming alarmism, so I won't delve into the problems with those ideas. But, let's ask this question: even if the U.S. writes the new rules and relinquishes sovereignty, as Zakahria suggests, who will interpret them? Judges from some pseudo-world court? Good luck selling that one. I don't see anti-Americanism declining in the new utopian world order. I see a legal regime dedicated to sticking it to the Great Satan.
Zakaria concludes:
Citizens and governments the world over have worked wonders during the past few decades. Now it's time for their governments to match this ingenuity with new forms of cooperation. The great project of the 21st century should be a new architecture—one that helps to ensure growth and peace for the world.
At last the hidden argument comes out a little further. Zakaria thinks ceding power to these institutions will prevent future wars, but he's trying to avoid saying so directly. Hence, he talks about these institutions helping solve an epidemic or the financial crisis. But, we don't need these institutions to have the authority to deal with such problems. In either case, most governments will cooperate on such issues already because it's in their interest. International institutions with authority are needed to get countries to do things NOT in their interest. The sort of things countries are willing to fight over.
If you want world peace, there are two ways to get nations to renounce the right to go to war:
- Convince them there is nothing worth fighting for.
- Have them relinquish authority to declare war to an international body.
Our schools, universities and media put great effort into the former. Zakaria's piece approaches the issue from the latter angle. But, I reject his inherent fear that the rise of powers like China and India will threaten the United States, requiring a new international order. The current international system that has existed since the end of the Second World War was designed by the United States to allow other countries to grow and prosper. It's been extraordinarily successful (which Zakaria implies throughout) and doesn't need changing. The most powerful force on the planet is the U.S. military. It should not be relinquished to some corrupt international organization. Once Zakaria can point to a single example of a successful international organization, I'll revisit his argument.
Finally, if you're wondering if Zakaria's views will be known in Obama's Administration, here's a photo that should answer that.
