#world federation

The nations of Earth are widely varied in history, environment, and people, giving us a rich landscape of human society to view across the world. There is no one nation unimportant, and the goal of a world federation is to support and protect all of them. However, the development of recent world history in the wake of the World Wars has led to five nations in particular becoming prominent world superpowers, as evidenced by their position as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the French Republic (and, for purposes of this discussion, the rest of the European Union), the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. These are not the world’s only superpowers, but their position as founders and shapers of the post-WW2 world is undeniable.

Each of the UNSC Permanent Members is noteworthy among superpowers — the United Kingdom once ruled an empire that stretched across the world, and their influence has been left behind in language and culture (as evidenced by my writing in English). One of its offspring, the United States, grew from colonies to a major world power, and invented the nuclear bomb that set off an international arms race. The European Union is a potential model for stable world federation, and its members have all spread their ideas, languages, culture, and inventions around the world. The Russian Federation pioneered one of the largest and most well known examples of socialism in the 20th century, and is the largest nation in the world. The People’s Republic of China is one of the oldest lasting nations in the world, dating back to the dawn of civilization, and not only is it the most populous nation in the world, but it has emerged as an economic giant among the international economy.

For their participation in the Second World War (Russia, the US, and the UK fought to liberate France in Europe, China and the US pushed against Japan in the Pacific), each of these nations was granted access to the United Nations Security Council, a section of the UN dedicated to maintaining international peace. While regular members are rotated out to allow other nations to serve for two year terms, each of these nations has remained on the UNSC since its inception, only changing due to changes in the respective national governments for the members. They also receive the power to veto adoption of policy and elections of Secretary-General, an authority that has been exercised hundreds of times.

For these reasons, I believe that among the nations of the world, these five superpowers (counting the EU in lieu of France) are the keys to the foundation of eco-socialist federation, both economically and politically. The error in previous attempts to make an international alliance was the lack of coerciveness, the lack of participation. In both the League of Nations and the modern United Nations, there is little incentive for nations to cooperate for the greater good of peace, environmental security, and preservation of human rights. If, through democratic push or through the means of revolution, these five nations were to establish a precedent for the principles of eco-socialist federalism, to be the founders of a United World Federation and use their position in the world as leaders to open membership up to the entirety of the world, a greater chance could be secured of its establishment than done otherwise.

In order to create a strong and moral world federation, a constitution and set of guidelines for each nation must be laid out, rules that a nation must follow for membership, rather than allowing nations to operate within it that don’t abide by fundamental moral principles. In the United Nations, having as many nations as possible as members takes precedence over withholding the moral standards that the UN stands for; there is compromise and accommodation where there should not be. This makes for an easily formed but ineffective federation where oppressive nations hold the advantage, as they can simply disagree and overturn attempts at reform, since their peers have little way to force them without risk of conflict. There needs to be a point at which we put our foot down, at which we prioritize the protection of the people over the interests of the government. There needs to be a minimum set of legal qualifications for entry into the world federation; standards are worth the difficulty.

To back up this constitution and the subsequent protections of human rights and freedoms that it entails, as well as the willingness to put economic interests aside for the greater good, we must have founding nations that can act as the first examples of these guidelines, the first members of a federation that can demonstrate principles not just on paper but in action. These first nations need to be powerful, to show that the federation can stand even despite the costs it must undertake, and that the enemies that could conspire against it shall not easily destroy such a partnership of nations. If we start the federation off with morally uncompromising nations that are powerful to run a federation by themselves, it will demonstrate the strength and the worthwhileness to the world of membership, the value of the cost of moral and legal reform.

The Five Nations I have listed are some of the most powerful and influential in the world, acting as longstanding centers of culture, development, and economy. To sway them from their current political paths, and to get them all to commit to the foundation of a world federation would be difficult, for various reasons — opposition to socialist economics, current violation of civil rights, historical divides and grudges. However, I believe that if it were done another way, and if we were to try to form federation and gain their support afterwards, they would prove even more of a challenge as an adversary, opposing entry through the theatres of diplomacy or war. A fledging federation would already face enough difficulty trying to establish itself to come up at odds with major world powers in the way other socialist nations throughout history have. On the other hand, their resources and reputation would automatically make a young federation a considerable world power, and by that image alone could serve to sway many more nations to our side.

Democracy and diplomacy are always the first option, but to some degree, each of these nations would require some sort of reform, a preparation phase to move each into the proper position for entry into a world federation. While I have ideas, I know that I can only reliably speak for my own nation — the United States is plagued by discrimination and a propaganda-fueled hatred for socialist and internationalist principles. We have an idea of how to advance, but decades-old paranoia of social change and a widespread contentedness with the shallow victories of moderate liberalism keep us moving at a snail’s pace. Simply put, we have no time to wait years for the old and the wealthy to come around to diversity and livable salaries while people and the environment are suffering. Fear of public backlash from outdated ideologies keeps us in political gridlock, and we must be bold and not cautious in our time of need.

Other nations in the Five run along the same general trends, having not reached a level of societal development where the equality of gender, sexuality, race, religion, etc. are guaranteed, or where the social freedoms granted to citizens either restrict the ability to live a fulfilling live (i.e. violations of a citizen’s free speech) or put citizens needlessly in harm’s way (i.e. open and unrestricted use of firearms). As with my feelings about my own nation, I simply don’t have the patience for the slow crawl of politics when any delay harms others, and I don’t believe that anyone should have patience for it. It is not in the nature of citizens to restrict and disadvantage themselves, and it is often more in the interest of government. Government is meant to serve its people, and if it cannot evolve with the times, it is in need of an upgrade.

Should the need arise where these nations refuse to change and to meet the conditions necessary for a functioning eco-socialist federalist society, the option arises of simultaneous and coordinated revolution, at varying levels, of the five major superpowers. Once again, this proves no easy task, but the difficulty of this task does not diminish its worth. The first step is to spread the word, to make the concepts and principles of eco-socialist federation known, and when the people see that there is a way beyond war, pollution, and hatred of our fellow humans, they will rise up in support of it. It is the choice of their respective governments if they will heed the demands of the people, or if they will face the consequences for holding us back.

Through whatever means, to have the citizens of each of the Five Nations move to prepare their nations for entry into a federation designed to benefit all of humanity and all future generations will be the next step in securing eco-socialist federation. At some point or another, an eco-socialist federation will require the agreement of all nations to democratic structure, socialist economics, and environmentally friendly policy, and if we are to start with any nation, a coordinated turn of these five nations, whose position in the world is exemplified by their position as permanent members of the UNSC, would be the most advantageous and strongest start to a future world federation.

Our immediate future is concerned with the creation of a democratic world federation and staving off the coming climate crisis. But beyond that, where do we venture? After all, the goal of what we do is not to reach a summit, to achieve peace and call it good, but to provide a foundation on which to build future generations of innovation and discovery. We want to make a better world so that our descendants worry about how to increase efficiency in our spaceships rather than if war will break out or what they'll eat tomorrow.

Even if we are able to delay the change in Earth's climate for our survival, one day we will not be able to live on this planet anymore, due to a variety of causes (the climate crisis happening anyway, the Earth being swallowed by a dying sun, an unforeseen collision from a celestial body), which means that one future priority is to expand our territory outward from our home planet and onto others. None of the planets in our solar system are adapted for life, but through terraforming or biospheres, we can create new land for us to live on, which provides us with both extra space to grow, a backup option in case of emergency, and a source of potential new resources.

Our early expeditions to the moon and our robotic probes have only scratched the surface of what we can do with the other seven planets in our local system, not to mention the untapped power of the sun. Strategically placed waystations throughout the solar system could make interplanetary travel much quicker and more coordinated, reducing risk and allowing us to understand more about our home, as well as to get closer to other star systems for observation, and eventually, interstellar travel. Our current science tells us that travel between stars would come at great difficulty due to the threshold that is the speed of light being nigh-impossible to reach, but we have plenty to explore within our reach now, and by the time we've accomplished that, who knows how much our engines and technology will have advanced.

Even with what we know now, travel between star systems closest to us would take only years if we travel at the speed of light, and if we can develop ships capable of hosting intergenerational crews, we could make long term investments on trips to nearby stars. Humanity could survive even the loss of our solar system as we begin life and civilization anew on a multitude of planets in strange and unfamiliar solar systems, this time with the benefit of knowledge and history on our side. As the distance between humans and Earth increased, the concept of federation may become looser, as two largely separated civilizations orbiting different stars might have limited contact, and would be capable of focusing on their own issues rather than each others. However, if we can manage to find peace in our current time, it would be unlikely to see needless conflict between colonies and Earth.

While we send out crews to establish colonies elsewhere, the future of Earth and our native solar system could be for advancement - to use pre-established structures to use our planets and star to the fullest, with this idea exemplified best by the concept of a Dyson sphere. Named after physicist Freeman Dyson, the Dyson sphere is a theoretical structure created around a star that would harness the energy it created, given that stars are, in their most basic description, colossal engines of heat and radiation. While solar panels use light to generate moderate amounts of electricity, they hardly scratch the surface of what the sun casually produces on a daily basis, and while such a structure is far beyond our current ability to create, it would fuel a civilization far more massive than we are now, and could alleviate the stress of energy industries to constantly find more fuel.

To harness the energy of the sun in the most efficient way possible would act as a major milestone for humanity, as it would firmly move us along the Kardashev scale. This theoretical model of space faring civilizations was developed in 1964 by Nikolai Kardashev, and determines how advanced these civilizations are based on how they fuel their energy use - which is tied directly to both technological development and sustainable production capacity. Coming back out of fantasy for a bit, our modern world uses many of the resources of our own planet unsustainably, and has a constantly increasing production capacity, but not one we can maintain with our own technological limits (hence the need for organized federation to manage and maintain a balance until we innovate).

The creation of a world federation and the subsequent management of environmental policy and industry could bring us shortly to the Type I level - a civilization that sustainably uses the energy of their entire planet. This is not too far from our reach (in the realm of a few centuries), and would provide a good foundation for future space-faring and the development of our solar system, but as I have said, would not hold us forever. As we both develop colonies elsewhere and make the best use of our neighbor planets, we could develop a Dyson sphere (or more practically, a Dyson swarm of satellites that orbit around the Sun) to upgrade ourselves to the next level. A Type II civilization harnesses the energy of it's entire solar system, and would turn Earth and it's surroundings into a futuristic powerhouse; a launching point for interstellar missions and a center of federal democracy.

But who says we have to stop there? Beyond a Type II civilization is a Type III civilization - whereas a Type II will consist of a solar system's energy production, a Type III will harness the energy of the entire galaxy. It seems like a far-off, Star Wars-esque fairy tell to assume we could develop a 'Galactic Federation', but we are considering now perhaps thousands of years into the future. The more we create colonies and master interstellar travel, the more we may learn about space and the speed of light in general. We cannot properly discuss things that we might not know precisely because we do not know them, but to be on the safe side, I like to assume that we never know 100% of what there is to know about the universe. So much of the cosmos is still a mystery, and by the time we become a Type II civilization, our worldview may have changed drastically, along with the secrets of quicker space travel.

The possibilities are endless, as even what we know of our universe, even the farthest limits of what we've observed are simply the most distant lights on our horizon. The universe could be, in fact, infinite, and once we learn to manage our societal problems, the only thing that limits us will be time. I like to imagine the future often - a united human race, working day after day to aim and go higher and further than ever before. If we learn to stop fighting each other, if we see past petty divisions of class and identity and collaborate, we would do things our ancestors thought unachievable a thousand times over. And so that is what we fight for, among other things, when we seek to make change in the world. We fight for peace so that humanity can stop fighting each other, and instead fight against our own limitations.

The Sword of Orion's most basic motto is "respice ad futurum, respice ad astra," Latin for "Look to the future, look to the stars." We are destined not to kill each other and have thousands of years of human civilization remain rubble in the dust, but to travel the universe, to understand the nature of science, and perhaps even to meet and learn from other civilizations on our trek. It will take a movement and change that Earth has perhaps never seen before, but such a future is one worth fighting for.

Despite these challenges, a report from the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations shows that India generated over USD 1 billion in revenues through the direct selling sector in 2017.

Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day”, September 8, 1953