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I'm curious — how would you avoid regionalism? Nate Send a noteboard - 05/07/2013 08:15:02 PM

If there was one worldwide government, how would you avoid regionalism?

If the people of the world voted for representatives in the worldwide government, those representatives would try to use their political power to benefit the people who voted for them. That's how representative democracy works.

If you had proportional representation, then representatives from China, India, and Africa (even if those countries/continents no longer existed as distinct political units) would have a big chunk of the say-so in government, and could introduce laws and policies that would benefit the people who voted for them, at the potential expense of other areas.

You could do away with proportional representation and just give each continent the same number of representatives, but then you have to deal with the fact that the voters from Australia (0.3 percent of the world's population) controls one-sixth of the political power. Even if you split things up differently, you still end up with regions, each of which will vote for representatives who will do things to benefit them.

A functional world government, in theory, could do away with war (though in reality you would probably be dealing with dozens of internal rebellions of varying sizes instead, trading foreign armies for armed dissidents). But getting rid of regionalism seems like a tough nut, unless you put the world in charge of a dictator (and then the regions would still try to curry the dictator's favour).

Warder to starry_nite

Chapterfish — Nate's Writing Blog
http://chapterfish.wordpress.com
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Gallup - Conservatives more proud to be American than Liberals..... - 04/07/2013 09:12:12 PM 1405 Views
I'm not surprised either. *NM* - 04/07/2013 09:19:25 PM 391 Views
How does one American? *NM* - 04/07/2013 09:58:03 PM 407 Views
That seems like a no-brainer. What I find more remarkable... - 04/07/2013 10:15:10 PM 808 Views
I'm not all that surprised by that, either. - 04/07/2013 10:47:41 PM 772 Views
I'm trying to think my way through this, and I keep running into holes. - 04/07/2013 10:48:59 PM 828 Views
I really don't want to get into the sickness known as nationalism (patriotism) - 05/07/2013 07:10:09 PM 998 Views
I'm curious — how would you avoid regionalism? - 05/07/2013 08:15:02 PM 818 Views
P.S. (more thoughts on worldwide government) - 05/07/2013 08:57:01 PM 778 Views
Interesting general thought train, let me hop on board - 07/07/2013 12:52:18 PM 905 Views
Mmm. - 09/07/2013 05:44:04 PM 860 Views
Interplanetary just doesn't leave much interdependence - 09/07/2013 08:14:18 PM 845 Views
Them's some cool beans. - 09/07/2013 09:11:50 PM 766 Views
Re: Them's some cool beans. - 09/07/2013 10:11:50 PM 746 Views
There were two questions on that poll. - 05/07/2013 07:53:13 PM 1050 Views
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Congrats! You win the bitterness award. - 05/07/2013 09:49:00 PM 893 Views
Bitterness? How so? - 08/07/2013 05:26:50 PM 975 Views
Nice post. Your honor, I rest my case! *NM* - 08/07/2013 06:15:47 PM 392 Views
Er. Obviously? - 06/07/2013 02:24:44 PM 846 Views
By what measure, I wonder... - 06/07/2013 04:21:57 PM 799 Views
Being proud of America has zero to do with our government..... - 06/07/2013 04:57:30 PM 731 Views
I don't think this is accurate. - 06/07/2013 10:58:43 PM 848 Views
Re: I don't think this is accurate. - 06/07/2013 11:46:47 PM 824 Views
You'd have to list the study - 07/07/2013 12:10:13 AM 939 Views
Every study. - 07/07/2013 01:14:48 AM 931 Views
Nice non-reply. - 09/07/2013 05:23:25 PM 809 Views
You didn't say anything meriting an in-depth response - 09/07/2013 08:52:13 PM 751 Views
Actually.... - 10/07/2013 03:00:42 AM 726 Views
Pride comes before the fall. *NM* - 12/07/2013 06:33:56 PM 438 Views

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