RE AN INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY AND CURRENCY

RE AN INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY

In actuality, global collective action on the part of the various governments who are today working together via international institutions has already been identified as a reliable method of improving the world's economic status.  But even more benefit will be derived from a system tnhat is completely free of any and all positical influence as regards economic decision-makimng.

In a sense, the aforesaid can be referred to as "apples and oranges."  In our world today, political issues are the apples, and economic concerns the oranges.  Neither should be a part of, assist, or function as a detriment to, the other, if benefit to mankind is to be the ultimate objective.  Efforts have in the past been undertaken to promote international economic cooperation with a minimum of needless interference on a political level.  Institutions such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, are examples of entities founded to fulfill such functions.  To their favor, statistics can be cited such as the reduction in tariff levels from an average of forty percent to five percent between 1945 and the 1980s.  But further progress appears to be required--upon considering, for example, that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are regarded in many places as mere instrumentalitiews of the United Stsates Treasury and Wall Street.

Conmingling of economics with politics can furthermore produce troublesome leagues of political entities that are joined together on account of a common economic attribute or interest.  A famous league of this nature is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (or "OPEC"), whose members are said to possess a major proportion of the world's oil reserves.  This organization consists of a number of nation-states, who are themselves separate and independent, and occasionally at odds with one another.  They have banded together for the primary purpose of using their common possession of a resource which happens to be presently needed by most of mankind, as a means of deriving defense against, and advantage in their dealings with, nation-states who do not have natural access to oil.  The result is frequently hostility, of the "us and them" variety--which is counter to a peacefully functioning world and a productive society.

If there were no separate nations, there would be no joining together of peoples on this basis.  There would be no sense of suspicion or hostility toward "outsider" nations; nor would there be a need to utilize the possession of a universally necessary resource as a means of maintaining mutual protection from nations vieweed as potential aggressors.  Instead, there would simply be areas of our earth where petroleum is plentiful--and areas where it is not.  Oil would no longer be a pawn in a chess game between nation-states--but rather a part of the global economy--fueled, governed, and regulated by a global investment regime.  Oil prices would be basically uniform worldwide--except for modifications based upon logistical costs, such as shipping from the places of production to the places of purchase, refinery, storage, consumption, and similar considerations.  There would be no nationally oriented industries or entities to protect--and no individual nation-states to ptrotect or favor them.

In my opinion, the economically needless constraints of national boundaries have actually become a hindrance to further economic progress.  Were there no borders, a single worldwide economy would promptly and fully emerge; and differences based upon national existence would fade.  The overall result would seem to likely consist of a worldwide set of basic costs, wages, and prices; with variations occasioned only by miscellaneous immutable factors such as heretofore set forth.  No longer would there be protests by American union workers over the loss of jobs to cheaper foreign labor--because wages would be uniformly appropriate both here and abroad.  And no longer would one set of wages for one sort of worker in a particular industry purchase more, or less, depending upon his or her location--because, subject only to the aforesaid (probably few and minor) miscellaneous considerations, costs and prices would become similar worldwide.  Moreover, it is poossible that even these variations--minor and short-lived as they would probably be--could be equalized for the time being via public funding.

I envision a world subject to but a single economic order, defined by a single currency, free of tariffs and international regulations, governed by a single set of laws and rules pertaining to industry, commerce, labor, and the marketplace, and regulated by a global central bank.  In such an atmosphere, economic conditions would become equalized everywhere; and economically advantaged and disadvantaged persons, places, and things would naturally come to arrive at a single universally satisfactory level.

It is assumed that there would be need for a single worldwide regulatory and monitoring agency, whose function would be to promote and preserve this single worldwide economic order.  But that is all that would be required in such an era of universal economy.

Such a worldwide economy would obviously intrude upon concepts such as sovereignty and national autonomy.  It would intrude upon what are until now known and referred to as "domestic economic and political affairs."  For this reason it is apparent that a single worldwide economy would more logically exist--in fact, could probably only exist--in a world governed by a single world governing body.  It is predicted that such a new world order would thereupon naturally foster global prosperity as well as world peace.

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