What if there were no countries?

[Nik]

In sci-fi it's rather often that there are no 'countries', but Federations of constellations, planets, etc.. It is implied that that's how our future shall look.
What if we didn't have countries, governments, etc already now, but would resorted to mild policing to assure crime safety and stuff?
Do you think it can work, if most communities willingly participated?

[Graeme]

There would be no where to run too when faced with a dictatorial government.

[Philip]

Certainly the progress of the EU and the UN was tending towards a global government. We have some of the necessary components but what is required is that the institutions charged are accepted by the receiving population. Unfortunately we still have countries that ignore the UN Security Council or the Hague World Court. Sometimes for what could be considered good reasons.

Even Dictators require some support from the population (they get overthrown otherwise)

Now with Brexit and the rejection in other parts of the EU population of the 'ever-closer union' objectives, even the EU may slow down its path to a federated state. The UN is ignored by even more elements especially the USA and Russia. The USA seems to want to disentangle itself from various international treaties which are the prospective path to a global government.

The willingly participate bit seems a far off distant utopia. I cannot see how we get there (If we even want to) from here.

[Ian]

In some of my futuristic books, I have a Federation, but the purpose of the government is different - it has one major purpose and that is to ensure all the countries in it play by the same rules. The ideal was that the countries still run their people the same way, but with equal starts for their citizens and they can afford more social spending because there is a much lower military spending, which mainly goes on space exploration. The other main purpose of thee rule is to to properly manage resource consumption and energy needs. Of course the stories involve what can go wrong when you try to be ideal.

[Scott]

I think that as long as there's this tribal mentality (they're different from us, and THOSE people over THERE are really different from both of us) a nation-less world is unreal. We have these "states" here and they're very divided by so many different things. Even in a city, everyone can't agree how to best allocate common resources. Maybe churches are the one area where there isn't a tribal mentality. They'll take care of others in their parish or community no matter what their race or ethnicity or whatever. (Which is odd; I never thought I'd have anything positive to say about religion!)

If there were other worlds, maybe we would lose some of that tribal mentality on THIS world, and come together for our common interests. But as long as there's no "other" I don't think that nations on this planet are going away...

[Ian]

If you have no countries, other than a Federal government, you have no social welfare. I am not so sure everyoe wants to return to that.

[J.N.]

What if the United Nations became the "federal government for the world"?

[Graeme]

Utter disaster

[[deleted user]]

The United Nations have only proved to be two things up to now: incompetent and ineffective.

[Ian]

The United Nations are not actually united. It might have been a good idea at the start, but nobody there is trying to make it work - they all have their own agendas. Also, there is no connection with the people anywhere. Those there are appointed by governments to promote the politicians' agendas.

[Scout]

Interesting thought, Scott: "If there were other worlds, maybe we would lose some of that tribal mentality on THIS world, and come together for our common interests. But as long as there's no "other" I don't think that nations on this planet are going away..."

[Holly]

I don't think that removal of borders would result in the end of tribal mentality. Tribal mentality is human nature and can revolve around anything; political parties, sports teams, or even something so trivial as what kind of vehicle you drive.

We can change our societal structure all around, but until human beings evolve a little (or a lot) we will just continue with "change" and not achieve "improvement".

The answer is within ourselves, not the edges of the places we live.

[Nik]

Tribal or not, we are now in the midst of conflicting tendencies of amalgamation of nations into a larger pan-national confederations (EU) on the one hand and ever ongoing division on national principle (Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, USSR, etc). Intuitively, one nation feels more progressive, however the conditions are not ripe yet, because of deep mentality differences, level of well-being, etc. Cancel countries now and a lot of places will be deserted in favor of more prosperous locations. However, the globalization, internet, media with all their drawbacks still water down the differences.
As at least some people feel that politicians and governments don't exactly represent them, maybe one day we can do better without putins, trumps, merkels and other jolly bunch -:)

[Ian]

The problem with the EU is that Brussels operates on appointed governance, and the appointees tend to have barrows to push. They want to regulate out all sorts of local behaviour, they want to redistribute wealth, and they want to be good world citizens, or at least appear to be, but they do not bear the consequences. The reason for Brexit is almost certainly the threatened influx of refugees from the Muslim world. Eastern Europe is happy enough with the EU because they get huge economic benefits and few of the refugees, and they tend to send workers to the western parts. Greece is being torn to bits by the German bankers, but it hasn't the nerve to exit. The problem here is the rulers couldn't care less about some of the parts. Greece is there to save some German banks from collapse, and it will pay. Austerity is great for the very rich, but idiotic for a country in depression.