Lay-zey Fare
After tuition I had a chat with the parents of my student about the deplorable state of the Malaysian education system, and how, compared to Japan (where they had been for the past three years), Malaysian public school teachers are probably on a whole other scale...of incompetence. You know, I blame it on the pay. Government school teachers are paid (pretty much) peanuts for their educational service, so instead, what they do is offer home tuition to their students at exorbitant costs, and then teach topics during this home tuition that they won't teach at school. The children are therefore forced to attend the exorbitantly-priced home tuition, or face failing school tests (in which material only covered in tuition will come out) and being "relegated" to a lower class. And so contrary to the general perception that teachers are generally extremely poor, Malaysian government school teachers sit at home in their cushy houses, charging RM50 an hour to EACH STUDENT (and they have something like 5O STUDENTS, which at four hours of tuition a week comes up to a whopping RM40,000 a month, which is more than most businessmen get). Madness. Absolute madness.
Anyway, that wasn't my point. I meant to say that the comparison between Malaysia and Japan got me thinking about whether people - humans, if you like - are essentially the same or not. Actually I was thinking about whether it would be possible or even desirable to have a world government...although I suppose if you think about it, it's really the same kind of question. If you believe people are generally the same, e.g. rational, making decisions on logical reasoning and lucid rationality, then you would probably think a world government would work. The idea of a world government would be logical in many ways - in terms of avoiding war, diverting resources that would normally be used for war towards creation and development instead, greater respect for the natural world, etc. It's a very large-scale macroscopic idea, because it regards the progression of humanity as a whole, rather than as a competition between different pockets of humanity within a network of geographical boundaries.
But if you believe people are generally too different to ever agree on a world government, and that moreover people are irrational and emotional, then you'd probably say a world government isn't possible. As a hard cynic, I can see several problems jump straight out at me with a world government. How would a world government deal with religion? It's all very well to say we can adopt a "neutral" view of it, i.e. believe what you wish and no one will be prosecuted, but some countries in the world operate on religion, and so this "neutral" view would be just as bad - if not worse - than saying "the world government is atheist". How would they deal with education, and what about currency, there would be no such thing as an exchange rate anymore. There are many, many more problems I can think of...
World government protagonists point to the Federation of the United States of America as a working model of what could be a world government - a whole host of different religions, cultural backgrounds etc., all combined and represented by one government. The country is divided into states, and each state has power over their people, but all states defer to a larger Federal Law. In the same way, the world is divided into countries, and each state would have power over their people, but all countries would defer to the world government.
This isn't meant to be a comprehensive discussion on all the nuances of the argument for and against a world government, although rest assured it's all in my head :) Just that if I typed all my thoughts out, you'd be here till Christmas. Anyway, isn't it a beautiful thought? No war, development of humanity as a whole, united we stand, yada yada. Still, call me cynical, but I don't think so. The closest thing we have to a world government (or a world anything, really) is the United Nations, and...well, judge it for yourself. Also, "possible" and "desirable" are quite different concepts. You might think that a world government is not possible, but desirable nonetheless, while someone else might think that a world government is neither possible nor desirable. I don't know if anyone can sincerely believe a world government is possible, but if you think it's desirable, then by all means, go ahead and hope. As for me, I'm with Thomas Jefferson when he said "That government is best which governs the least". Laissez-faire, that's the way to go.