5. Democracy

It doesn't take much more than a scan through the morning papers to see that almost everything going on these days is a global problem. Here's a list in no particular order

i. global warming
ii. terrorism
ii. oil shortages
iii. food & water shortages
iv. migration & immigration
v. hard drugs
vi. the economy
vii. Problems i to vi are inter-related and co-dependent for a solution.


The kind of real changes that must occur to solve these problems will always be deeply unpopular. Talk about saving the environment is replaced with protest against economic recession. Fear of terrorist atrocities is replaced with complaints about scans and searches at airports.

Democracy has always been schizophrenic, but two things have made it untenable in the modern world. The first is the global nature of the problems we face. The second is rapid mass communication. Democracy and nation-state politics mean every government fights in the interests of its own elected position and in the interests of it own people to the detriment of all else, including the future of the planet. While politicians cut and paste policies to fit the fickle whims of a wired public, global problems continue to spiral out of control while nothing gets done, or at any rate, while not enough gets done fast enough.

There is only one logical conclusion, and that is a seriously proper World Government (that excludes the UN by definition). Since no elected representative could be trusted not to sell their integrity for their position, a non-democratic model is the only practical one. Singapore has long thrived without democracy, proving that something approaching 'benign dictatorship' is possible. The Chinese are discovering it, and are likely to become and remain the world's largest Superpower long after the West has fallen into a new Dark Age.