Worldwide Union

I recently saw this map that shows the GDP of every state and gives the name of the country for which their GDP is comparable to the state's GDP. It's pretty amazing how our one country's GDP is equal to 50 other country's GDP's combined. For example, the State of California alone is equal to the country of France and the GDP of Texas is equal to the GDP of Canada.

This is pretty interesting, but what it really made me think of and realize is that we are really just a union of states. States in the sense of the greek city-states of Athens and Sparta or the Italian city-states of Florence and Vienna. Granted we're states and not city states, but it makes me think differently about the term "state". Usually we talk and think of the different states as more province like than as sovereign states. For instance, Canada has provinces, which are more like areas divided up by the main government. However looking back on the history of the Unites States, which started simply as 13 states and grew to 50 today, it's really not much different than the European Union. People criticize the EU today and worry about a similar American Union joining together USA, Canada, and Mexico. While I'm not neccesarily a supporter of an American Union, this picture has made me rethink the whole idea of country's uniting under a common currency and government.

The European Union stared with the Euro, a common currency to help boost up poorer countrys and help with trade between nations. Today however, the European Union has an elected commission which serves as the legislative pillar of the Union and has a President and everything. I didn't realize this until talking to a guy I met from Europe recently, this is a pretty big deal, it's one step closer to a united world government. You know, like all those future governments portrayed in films about the future or alien planets in which they have a worldwide or one world government. Which is pretty interesting because there are many people who are against globalization and the idea of a one world government, and yet in all our films and visions of the future and of advanced alien societies, they have all united the earth in peace under a common government. I mean, isn't that the long term goal for our world? Getting to a place where we all have the same laws and rules and limits of government intrusions of our natural rights and everything?

I mean when you really think about it, what the European Union is doing today is exactly what the USA did a couple hundred years ago, over the period of a century or so. People went out and made new towns and cities in the Louisiana territory and Oregon Territory and former Mexican owned land, they got together, mapped out borders, and became their own independent states. Then they all asked to be part of the Union of the United States of America and Congress debated and voted as to whether or not to allow this new state to join. This process actually went on until 1950 when Hawai'i was added as the 50th state. The Europen Union is doing the exact same thing, the only thing is that they united with a common currency first and now have a common government, whereas the U.S. united under a common government first, then created a common currency. But there was an original group of countrys that joined, and others have slowly been added to the union over the years, currently the EU had 27 member states and a GDP of over $19 trillion.

So this both makes me try to think more of every state as it's own country and the federal government as just a common body we have mutually agreed to follow, which.. is what the constituion says we are, but it seems these days that most of us think of the USA just at the federal government and don't pay as much attention to what the state governments do outside of the occasional speech by the governor. But this also kind of makes me rethink the idea of globalization and a common world government. Ultimately this is the goal we want, all nations brought up or lowered down to an equal level. No more allowing some countries to torture or stone women, making sure every citizen of every nation of the world has equal rights. And money wise, being able to combine all the wealth of the nations of the world, uniting some government programs like, say... the space program. Imagine a unified one world government which is able to fund one common space program instead of a handful of space programs almost competing against each other. Currently NASA's budget is around 17 billion, but if we combined the world's programs together, we could boost that to 24 billion, plus we could build things faster and cheaper by have whole countries build only certain aspects of ships or satellites or whatever and be able to build new spaceships and exploration robots and vehicles faster and cheaper. And this is just one example of a benefit of a worldwide government.

Now granted there are many bad things that could come from a one world government, but that's no different than the problems that can come up from governments today. But I'm sure we could do things like we have in America to try to preven as much corruption as possible. The EU for example is a huge union, but the EU commission right now doesn't have more power than the individual country's governments, kind of like the Articles of Confederation in America.

Anyway, this is just the thinking process my mind takes after looking at one little picture, but it is some food for thought.