By Omar Alansari-Kreger
Is the concept of world federation inseparable from leftism? Are conservatives inevitably faced with a crisis of conscience when considering world federalism? One law for one world is most intriguing when imagining a world liberated from the scourge of endless forever wars. It would be no stretch of the imagination to suggest totalitarianism is authoritarianism refined when militarism is used as the primary impetus of state power in a world increasingly deepening in multipolarity. The basis of that reality is alive & well with us in the age of advanced artificial intelligence. Technology has no existential commitment to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. On the contrary, technological advances made in the name of information technology are predisposed to oppose & undermine all three. Massive technological breakthroughs cannot be sustained without great shifts made to civilization in the name of modernity. Alvin Toffler is often recognized as one of the most influential futurists post-World War Two from the last century. In one of his seminal works, Future Shock, he described a future of information overload made possible by the fast-paced acceleration & dissipation of information technology. Toffler insisted the rise & acceleration of information technology would be so advanced & unprecedented that it would forever reshape society giving rise to an enlarged adhocracy in place of representative democracy. Toffler seems predisposed to describe a great societal transition occurring in free representative democracies echoing warnings of a dystopian future as portrayed in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Yet, what of those great societal transitions occurring in repressive totalitarian states ruling by authoritarian decree where information technology is used as means to serve absolute ends without individual liberty?
Any crash course with history will confirm great advancements made in the name of technological progress do not occur in tribal isolation. It can therefore be argued the nation-state is the most advanced unit of tribal measurement to date since the Peace of Westphalia. That watershed moment in history made the rise of nationalism which manifested into the evils of colonialism, imperialism, & fascism. Technological progress is often followed by social progress forever altering attitudes & behaviors to realities of everyday life. This is particularly true when grand metanarratives of history prevail when designed to whitewash the inconvenient truths turned legacies of divide & rule. In the great 19th century scramble for colonial empire, imperialism was one of the first internationalisms made possible by the first industrial revolution. Each colonial empire from Europe saw itself as a supranational authority over its imperial subjects.
The cause for world federation peaked after World War Two. Enjoying full endorsements from celebrity scientists like Albert Einstein, the now defunct United World Federalists estimated that in the early & mid-1950s, 20-30% of Americans favored some form of world federation such as supranational control over nuclear weapons. This support was short lived as Cold War realities like mutually assured destruction became the norm on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The movement for world federation has not enjoyed such widespread public support since. This proved particularly true as the irrational fears of McCarthyism set an early precedent for anti-communism in America when top officials like J. Edgar Hoover believed world federalism to be little more than a communist front for world domination. This was made clear when Hoover personally ordered FBI surveillance of Albert Einstein out of suspicion
for his world federalist activism. At the peak of World War Two, Wendell Willkie, a liberal Republican sought to unseat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the presidential election of 1940. He lost the election after having gained a wide margin of the electoral college vote. He planned a campaign comeback for the presidency in 1944 before his unexpected death the same year at the age of 52. In 1943, he authored One World, a travelogue turned manifesto advocating for a world federal government. As the two great totalitarianisms of fascism & Soviet communism ravaged Europe, Willkie’s One World seemed like a godsend well ahead of its time. Within his work, he called for an end to colonialism, including American exceptionalism to empire. Most extraordinarily, he advocated for the racial equality for blacks & whites at a time when America’s servicepeople on the front lines of World War Two were racially segregated. The legacy of Wendell Willkie has an uncanny tendency of reemerging whenever conservatives in support of world federalism set out to find common ground with their own values. Somewhere between an emerging technological adhocracy, historical idealism, & dystopian hyperbole, there exists an unquenched thirst for world federalism. A world of multipolarity is one of global governance, not world government. It is the law of the jungle where hegemonic state actors turned geopolitical kingmakers compete in a neo-Hobbesian reality. Advocacy for world federalism finds itself steeped in opacities offering little beyond rudimentary designs for world federal government. Non-government organizations like Democracy Without Borders argue world federalism is made maximally accessible with United Nations reform via creation of a Paralimentary Assembly to function as a separate institutional organ. However, what is the feasibility of introducing a supranational congressional body of democratically elected officials without a jurisdictional enforcement body to uphold the rule of international law? Perhaps one of our greatest inspirations for the creation of a world federal government could be traced from the legacy of the Federalist Papers that formed the spiritual bedrock of the United States. In Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force & Influence, John Jay wrote:
“Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.” What if we reconceptualized this passage to apply to the natural rights of participating nations with a supranational confederated government ceded supreme authority over weapons of mass destruction, international criminal persecution, global humanitarian infrastructure, & environmental stewardship? The question is: Can a confederation coexist with the spiritual aspiration of supranational federation with proper checks & balances when tasked with the practical implementation of world governance for purposes of achieving world federation? History affirms the greatest nations are situated on the bedrock of ideas. They go on to inspire civilizations forming the heritage of human history. Global integration is a matter of practical necessity in America’s yearning for world peace. We often misplace the costly lessons of
American isolationism from the last century. Peace at home is impossible when the rest of the world is burning. Advanced technological utility is no remedy against the aspirations of petty dictators, insipid adhocracies, & totalitarian governments. The formation of a supranational federation made possible by limited world government will balance national sovereignty by proactive dialogue via practical cooperation for the most maximally effective model for global integration.
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Omar Alansari-Kreger (Omar Kreger) is an independent scholar specializing in social physics & critical epistemology. Omar is an activist for bringing nuclear weapons under supranational control to achieve a world liberated from the scourge of nuclear weapons. Omar has been published by the Minnesota Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, Minnpost, & Young World Federalists. Additionally, Omar frequently contributes reflective articles to UN-Aligned under the auspices of New Solutions with Omar & independently publishes editorial articles on his site, the New Columnist. Some of his recent books include: Epistemology Beyond Materiality (2022), Reason Renewed Reason Restored (2022), & Conceptual Idealisms Practical Truths (2023). He is a resident of Saint Paul Minnesota.
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Omar Kreger (Alansari-Kreger)
The New Columnist