Here is an excerpt from the Urantia Book, which I had to edit a little to be
useful. It is all from Section 5 of Paper
134.
Sovereignty is power and it grows by organization. This
growth of the organization of political power is good and proper, for it
tends to encompass ever-widening segments of the total of mankind. But
this same growth of political organizations creates a problem at every
intervening stage between the initial and natural organization of
political power — the family — and the final consummation of political
growth — the government of all mankind, by all mankind, and for all
mankind.
Starting out with parental power in the family group,
political sovereignty evolves by organization as families overlap into
consanguineous clans which become united, for various reasons, into
tribal units — super-consanguineous political groupings. And then, by
trade, commerce, and conquest, tribes become unified as a nation, while
nations themselves sometimes become unified by empire.
As
sovereignty passes from smaller groups to larger groups, wars are
lessened. That is, minor wars between smaller nations are lessened, but
the potential for greater wars is increased as the nations wielding
sovereignty become larger and larger. Presently, when all the world has
been explored and occupied, when nations are few, strong, and powerful,
when these great and supposedly sovereign nations come to touch borders,
when only oceans separate them, then will the stage be set for major
wars, worldwide conflicts. So-called sovereign nations cannot rub elbows
without generating conflicts and eventuating wars.
The
difficulty in the evolution of political sovereignty from the family to
all mankind, lies in the inertia-resistance exhibited on all intervening
levels. Families have, on occasion, defied their clan, while clans and
tribes have often been subversive of the sovereignty of the territorial
state. Each new and forward evolution of political sovereignty is (and
has always been) embarrassed and hampered by the “scaffolding stages” of
the previous developments in political organization. And this is true
because human loyalties, once mobilized, are hard to change. The same
loyalty which makes possible the evolution of the tribe, makes difficult
the evolution of the supertribe — the territorial state. And the same
loyalty (patriotism) which makes possible the evolution of the
territorial state, vastly complicates the evolutionary development of
the government of all mankind.
Political sovereignty is created
out of the surrender of self-determination, first by the individual
within the family and then by the families and clans in relation to the
tribe and larger groupings. This progressive transfer of
self-determination from the smaller to ever larger political
organizations has generally proceeded unabated in the East since the
establishment of the Ming and the Mogul dynasties. In the West it
obtained for more than a thousand years right on down to the end of the
World War, when an unfortunate retrograde movement temporarily reversed
this normal trend by re-establishing the submerged political sovereignty
of numerous small groups in Europe.
We will not enjoy lasting
peace until the so-called sovereign nations intelligently and fully
surrender their sovereign powers into the hands of the brotherhood of
men — mankind government. Internationalism — Leagues of Nations — can
never bring permanent peace to mankind. World-wide confederations of
nations will effectively prevent minor wars and acceptably control the
smaller nations, but they will not prevent world wars nor control the
three, four, or five most powerful governments. In the face of real
conflicts, one of these world powers will withdraw from the League and
declare war. You cannot prevent nations going to war as long as they
remain infected with the delusional virus of national sovereignty.
Internationalism is a step in the right direction. An international
police force will prevent many minor wars, but it will not be effective
in preventing major wars, conflicts between the great military
governments of earth.
As the number of truly sovereign nations
(great powers) decreases, so do both opportunity and need for mankind
government increase. When there are only a few really sovereign (great)
powers, either they must embark on the life and death struggle for
national (imperial) supremacy, or else, by voluntary surrender of
certain prerogatives of sovereignty, they must create the essential
nucleus of supernational power which will serve as the beginning of the
real sovereignty of all mankind.
Peace will not come until every
so-called sovereign nation surrenders its power to make war into the
hands of a representative government of all mankind. Political
sovereignty is innate with the peoples of the world. When all the
peoples of earth create a world government, they have the right and the
power to make such a government sovereign; and when such a
representative or democratic world power controls the world’s land, air,
and naval forces, peace on earth and good will among men can prevail —
but not until then.
To use an important nineteenth- and
twentieth-century illustration: The forty-eight states of the American
Federal Union have long enjoyed peace. They have no more wars among
themselves. They have surrendered their sovereignty to the federal
government, and through the arbitrament of war, they have abandoned all
claims to the delusions of self-determination. While each state
regulates its internal affairs, it is not concerned with foreign
relations, tariffs, immigration, military affairs, or interstate
commerce. Neither do the individual states concern themselves with
matters of citizenship. The forty-eight states suffer the ravages of war
only when the federal government’s sovereignty is in some way
jeopardized.
These forty-eight states, having abandoned the twin
sophistries of sovereignty and self-determination, enjoy interstate
peace and tranquility. So will the nations of the world begin to enjoy
peace when they freely surrender their respective sovereignties into the
hands of a global government — the sovereignty of the brotherhood of
men. In this world state the small nations will be as powerful as the
great, even as the small state of Rhode Island has its two senators in
the American Congress just the same as the populous state of New York or
the large state of Texas.
The limited (state) sovereignty of
these forty-eight states was created by men and for men. The superstate
(national) sovereignty of the American Federal Union was created by the
original thirteen of these states for their own benefit and for the
benefit of men. Sometime the supernational sovereignty of the planetary
government of mankind will be similarly created by nations for their own
benefit and for the benefit of all men.
Citizens are not born
for the benefit of governments; governments are organizations created
and devised for the benefit of men. There can be no end to the evolution
of political sovereignty short of the appearance of the government of
the sovereignty of all men. All other sovereignties are relative in
value, intermediate in meaning, and subordinate in status.
With
scientific progress, wars are going to become more and more devastating
until they become almost racially suicidal. How many world wars must be
fought and how many leagues of nations must fail before men will be
willing to establish the government of mankind and begin to enjoy the
blessings of permanent peace and thrive on the tranquility of good will —
world-wide good will — among men?
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