World peace
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World peace is an ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations. It is the professed ambition of many past and present world leaders.
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[edit] Definition
World peace is the utopian ideal of planetary non-violence by which nations cooperate, either voluntarily or by a system of governance that prevents warfare.
Some see a trend in national politics whereby city-states and nation-states have unified, and suggest that the international arena will follow suit. Many countries such as China, Italy, the United States, Germany have unified into single nation-states, with others like the European Union and African Union following suit, suggesting that further globalization will bring about a similarly unified world order.
Many interpretations of the concept are not like this, however. To some, world peace may simply mean the resolution of political conflicts through nonviolent means.
[edit] Plausibility
Although world peace is theoretically possible, many believe that it is impossible to achieve.[1][2][3]
The plausibility of world peace tacitly relies on the assumption of rational agents that base their decisions on future consequences, which is not self-evident. Bertrand Russell once expressed his skepticism regarding world peace:
After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it has generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, I believe is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.1
[edit] World peace theories
Many theories as to how world peace could be achieved have been proposed. Below are listed several ideas.
[edit] Various political ideologies
World peace is sometimes claimed to be the inevitable result of a certain political ideology. According to the President of the United States, George W. Bush: "The march of democracy will lead to world peace."[4]
Leon Trotsky, a Marxist theorist, assumed that the world revolution would lead to a communist world peace[5].
[edit] The democratic peace theory
Proponents of the controversial democratic peace theory claim that strong empirical evidence exists that democracies never or rarely wage war against each other. Several researchers find no wars between well-established liberal democracies.[6] Jack Levy (1988) made an oft-quoted assertion that the theory is "as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international relations".
An increasing number of nations have become democratic since the industrial revolution. A world peace may thus become possible if this trend continues and if the democratic peace theory is correct.
There are, however, several possible exceptions to this theory.
[edit] Cobdenism
Proponents of Cobdenism claim that by removing tariffs and creating international free trade, wars would become impossible, because free trade prevents a nation from becoming self-sufficient, which is a requirement for long wars. For example, if one country produces firearms and another produces ammunition, the two could not fight each other, because the former would be unable to procure ammunition and the latter would be unable to obtain weapons.
Critics argue that free trade does not prevent a nation from establishing some sort of emergency plan to become temporarily self-sufficient in case of war or that a nation could simply acquire what it needs from a different nation.
[edit] Mutual Assured Destruction
Mutual assured destruction (sometimes known as MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender.[7] Proponents of the policy of mutual assured destruction during the Cold War attributed this to the increase in the lethality of war to the point where it no longer offers the possibility of a net gain for either side, thereby making wars pointless.
[edit] Isolationism
Proponents of isolationism claim that a world made up of many nations can peacefully coexist as long as they each establish a stronger focus on domestic affairs and do not try to impose their will on other nation's.
Nations like Japan are perhaps the best known for establishing isolationist policies in the past. The Japanese Edo, Tokugawa, initiated the Edo Period, an isolationist period where Japan cut itself off from the world as a whole. This is a well-known isolation period and well documented in many areas.
[edit] Self-organized peace
World Peace, as seen as a consequence of local self-determined behaviors which inhibit the institutionalization of power and subsequent violence. The solution is not so much based on an agreed agenda, let alone investment in higher authority, whether divine or political, but rather a self-organized network of mutual supporting mechanisms whose emergent phenomenon is a sustainable politico-economic social fabric.
Dr. Frank Laubach, an American missionary to the Philippines in 1935 saw poverty, injustice and illiteracy as impediments to world peace.[8] He developed the "Each One Teach One" literacy program which taught about 60 million people to read in their own language.
[edit] Religious views of world peace
[edit] Bahá'í Faith
With specific regard to the pursuit of world peace, Bahá'u'lláh of the Bahá'í Faith prescribed a world-embracing Collective Security arrangement as necessary for the establishment of a lasting peace. The Universal House of Justice wrote about the process in The Promise of World Peace.
[edit] Buddhists
Many Buddhists believe that world peace can only be achieved if we first establish peace within our minds. Siddhārtha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, said, “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” [9] The idea is that anger and other negative states of mind are the cause of wars and fighting. They believe we can live in peace and harmony only if we abandon the anger in our minds and learn to love each other and practice altruism.
[edit] Drawbacks
Although world peace is seen by many as one of the key features of a utopia it may have some drawbacks.
[edit] Economic drawbacks
People around the world work in jobs directly or indirectly linked to the military. Without war and the threat of war, these jobs would become unnecessary and these people would become unemployed. These people could contribute to other sectors of the economy, but such jobs may not exist and unemployment would remain a problem.
In the United States the military offers benefits to soldiers, an example being $73,000 towards a college education for an active duty soldier under the Montgomery GI Bill and the Army College Fund. [10] This can help to give working class citizens a chance to get a higher education, allowing for more economic mobility. Without war, the army would not be necessary and this benefit would not exist. Some people also look at the military as a fallback if they cannot join the workforce as an adult.[citation needed] The salary of a private in the United States Army is $15,000 per year[11] for an active duty soldier. Without the jobs offered by the military, the economy could suffer.
In addition, many feel that World War II ended the Great Depression in the United States. The massive war spending doubled the Gross National Product, masking the effects of the Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts. Most people worked overtime and gave up leisure activities to make money. This is an example of a time when war has benefited the economy.
However, war also has economic drawbacks. War causes damage to infrastructure and human lives are lost. Wars are also known to cause immense inflationary pressures, as governments are required to borrow large sums of money to finance them, and often resort to printing more currency, causing the value of the currency to drop. The short-run frictional costs of inflation could also theoretically be avoided in a "world peace" scenario.
[edit] Scientific drawbacks
Many inventions have been made throughout history to be used to wage war. Rockets were invented in 1126 after the discovery of black powder and are still used as weapons today. However, the same principal behind ancient rockets was used by Soviet and American scientists during the Space race to send satellites into Earth orbit, leading to the development of communications satellites that are now a vital part of worldwide communication, and to send men to the Moon. Without wars, these inventions might have never been created. Future wars are likely to lead to similar developments that can improve lives here on Earth.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Generation Y Continues by Remy Benoit
- ^ Ivory Coast Prove That World Peace is Impossible
- ^ World peace is impossible By Mignonchang - Posted on August 17th, 2007
- ^ http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051017-1.html
- ^ http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1914/war/index.htm
- ^ [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], (Rummel 1997), (Ray 1995), (Weart 1998).
- ^ Mutual Assured Destruction; Col. Alan J. Parrington, USAF, Mutually Assured Destruction Revisited, Strategic Doctrine in Question, Airpower Journal, Winter 1997.
- ^ http://www.dreamscape.com/deborah/laubach/mission/FCL.htm
- ^ Quote by Siddhārtha Gautama
- ^ http://www.goarmy.com/benefits/education_money.jsp#Montgomery
- ^ http://www.goarmy.com/benefits/money_basic_pay.jsp
[edit] Citations
- 1: Cited by Judy Toth, Bertrand Russell Quarterly, February 2003.de:Weltfrieden
es:Paz mundial ja:世界平和 no:Verdensfred pt:Paz mundial sv:Världsfred zh:世界和平
