From Despotism to Democracy: How a World Government Can Save Humanity

by Torbjörn Tännsjö

This book is about how best to respond to existential global threats posed by war and global heating. The stakes have become existential. A strong claim in the book is that we need a world state to save humanity. The book sheds new light on why this is so. The present author has long advocated global democracy. A strong argument against global democracy has been, however, that no state has ever been established without the resort to violence. In this book, the author bites the bullet and advocates a route to global democracy that passes through a phase where a global state is established in the form of global despotism. First despotism, then democracy! But, as the author insists and the reader will find, this is at most something we can hope for. We may fail. The moral importance of failure is thoroughly discussed.

The book explored the following


·  The tragedy of the commons is presented as the best explanation of why we do so little to        obviate the causes behind climate change.

·  A world government presents a way out of the tragedy of the commons.

·  Standard arguments against a world state are examined.

·  The question of whether it matters if humanity goes extinct is taken seriously.

·  What if the attempt to establish a world state fails.

The book is written by a philosopher, but the intended audience is broad. It has a place in courses in political philosophy, but it is possible for anyone who wants to do so to dig deeper into the questions should be able to read it. And regardless of whether you who read the book are a scholar or a layperson, there is no way for you to avoid its topic. Global existential issues concern all of us, regardless of profession or nationality.

Genres: Politics

317 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 14, 2023

Reviews

[A. Heller · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can only assume that this book was published because the author is a senior figure who, having previously published interesting and rigorous work, was trusted by Springer and the (apparently very lax) peer review process they used to produce something worth reading. Otherwise I cannot explain how such a poorly argued book was published by an academic press. Given the bold nature of the thesis defended—namely, that an enlightened despotic world government is needed to save humanity—one would expect the arguments offered in its defense to be suitably powerful and convincing. But the arguments are instead virtually non-existent. At various points throughout the book, the author more-or-less just asserts that such a government would be able to competently address various global challenges. No account of *how* it would do so is offered, and no serious objections to its efficacy are properly addressed. What arguments are on offer are extraordinarily superficial, with the wildest claims supported by the flimsiest of reasons. A shockingly bad book.