The Personhood of States

Anyone who doesn’t desire a global government is whether they know it or not an advocate of anarchy.

Anyone who doesn’t desire a global government is, whether he knows it or not, an advocate of anarchy. Now that bold opening statements are out of the way, allow me to explain. What I mean by the above statement is that, in my mind, all positions between the extremes of anarchy and global government are incoherent whether those who hold these positions realize it or not.

As the founding fathers said,”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”[Full Text] These governments, once established, take on a sort of personhood derived from the citizens they represent. They assume duties and responsibilities as agents, and can be held responsible for their actions. As things are now is, we are near to a Hobbsian state of nature in our international relations and have no means of appealing to a higher authority; or at least not one that can do anything.

International relations is analogous to the interactions of humans and only differs in scale; there are friends (allies), enemies, trade, and conflict. International crime is the same way; you have international equivalents to theft, coercion, physical aggression, and even murder (the forced and unwarranted dissolution of states). However, international crime currently differs from crime between humans in one major way: there is no higher authority you can seek to exact justice. While yes there is a impotent substitute available in the United Nations; it lacks both completely universal membership and, more importantly, the ability to fully enforce its laws.

If governments are necessary to secure the rights of human beings, then it seems logically to follow that a solitary government would be necessary to secure the rights of states, enabling them to pursue the ends for which humans created them. Otherwise, nations find themselves having to spend as much time building up defense as actually attending to their citizens.