Comment Merchant Republics already Obsolete (Score 1) 133
Don't be duped by the UN's track record of ineptitude regarding administration and reconciliation of multinational affairs: The Year 2000 has ushered in changes that will forever and quickly render the entire world a single United Nation (no 's'). This week's Millennium Conference only ratifies the consolidation of political power into a single nationality that is less interested in American capitalism and the Bill of Rights than it is in the homogenization of Human Culture. The Rt Hon Tony Blair yesterday called for the establishment of a UN Army, to be implemented within the next 12 months (!) [think NATO for that quick startup], and this past June the United Religions Initiative [backed by the UN] ratified its charter, thereby doing for religious authority what the UN is trying to do for political authority: a single, pan-global union that leaves no alternative for individuals.
How to finance? The World Bank is already preparing for the inevitable transition to a handful of (or one) standard currencies and the inauguration of a global taxation authority to completely free the central government from the whims of the member states. Check your Anti-Federalist Papers.
The reality is simple: with the whole world under one governmental authority, there are no frontiers among which Merchant Republics can thrive. Even cyberspace will only be so much sand in which the incredulous can stick their heads.