The following is excerpted from the book:
Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution,
by Steve McIntosh.
© 2007 Published by Paragon House
For further excerpts, interviews and more, go to:
www.stevemcintosh.com


From Chapter 5, Integral Politics:

The type of global governance envisioned by the integral worldview would consist of a federation of nations united under a constitution of laws guided by the insights and principles of integral philosophy. An integral world federation would be instituted to provide democratic oversight of the global economy, protect the world's environment, establish a universal bill of human rights, preserve cultural diversity, and bring an eventual end to war, disease, and poverty. And even with limited jurisdiction (leaving national legal systems mostly in place), an integral world federation would provide for a system of global justice which would reduce the incentives for terrorism. Such a federation would not need to encompass the globe in one step. It would have to begin with a union of the E.U. and U.S., with other developed nations such as Australia and Japan joining at the beginning. Gradually, other countries could join the federation, but no country would be forced to join, with membership in the federation requiring a supermajority vote of a country’s population. An integral global authority would gradually encompass the world through evolutionary methods. National boundaries and local economies would be protected, and full membership in the federation would be granted only to countries that have achieved requisite degrees of freedom and democracy. Just as the E.U. has been gradually expanding, encouraging the political, economic and cultural evolution of those nations that aspire to join, so too could a world federation be gradually enlarged.

The benefits of effective global governance would be abundant. Democratic control of the global economy would produce greater fairness for individuals and fragile local cultures while at the same time producing greater overall prosperity. An integral world federation would have the authority to protect human rights and the world’s environment, inaugurating the kinds of safeguards that are currently impossible in a world of competing nation-states. It will almost always be morally illegitimate for one sovereign country to attack or dominate another sovereign country, regardless of the context. But a democratically controlled global federation will have the moral and political authority to be legitimately coercive over individual offenders (rather than entire countries) when it comes to preventing the destruction of people’s lives or the environment.

In appendix A, entitled: A Proposal for Integral Global Governance, we’ll explore an example of a potential structure that could be used to enact an integrally informed federal system of global governance. However, at this point, rather than going on about the advantages and solutions that could be provided by a world federation, I now need to address the reasonable objection that, even if it were a good idea, at this point global governance is nothing but a “left-wing peacenik fantasy” only dreamed about by “wooly-minded one-worlders.”

/snip/

The official website for the book: Integral Consciousness
contains additional excerpts and interviews

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