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# A strident Victorian or a realistic pluralist?
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/article-1527jsp/
- Published: 2003-10-08T23:10:00.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:48:22.000Z
- Author: Grahame Thompson
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 19:08

The international system is an unpredictable and demanding environment, populated by nasty beasts that need to be managed and controlled. Perhaps [George Monbiot](https://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=1514) and I agree only at this level. I [start](https://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=1499) from a different position in considering proposals for reform of the world system of governance. I do not think his proposals are just unrealistic; I also think them genuinely dangerous.

**Details, details**

Before elaborating on this, let me respond to the ‘trivial’ errors that George ascribes to me.

First, the [British edition](http://www.word-power.co.uk/catalogue/0007150423?ref=opendemocracy.net) of *The Age of Consent* (see, for example, pages 2 and 106) refers to a ‘global justice movement’; in a 2000 [article](http://www.monbiot.com/dsp%5Farticle.cfm?article%5Fid=285&ref=opendemocracy.net), George talks of “the environment and social justice movements”, and in [a 2002 one](http://www.monbiot.com/dsp%5Farticle.cfm?article%5Fid=530&ref=opendemocracy.net) of “a global people's movement led by the poor world” for which “social justice, human rights and the protection of the environment” were inseparable issues. But if the ‘global justice movement’ rather than my ‘global social justice movement’ is George’s chosen description of the moment, I am grateful to be corrected.

Second, he writes: “The only genuinely representative global forum is a *directly* representative one, by which of course, I mean a world parliament” (page 83). The shorthand rendering of this concept as a ‘World Representative Parliament’ seems fair, but George is entitled to differ.

Third, chapter 4 of his book (*We the Peoples: Building a World Parliament*) is a discussion both of reform of the UN along the lines I criticised in my review and the formation of a new world (representative) parliament. I feel quite entitled to describe these parallel, ambitious, indeed grandiose proposals as entailing “the beginnings of a bicameral *government* on a planetary scale”. Indeed, George himself does just this: “We could begin, in other words, to see the development of a bicameral parliament for the planet, which starts to exercise some of the key functions of government” (page 134).

Fourth, what I called (successively) an International *Clearing* Union and an International *Credit* Union is discussed and promoted by George in Chapter 5 (and elsewhere) as the former (*Something Snaps: An International Clearing Union*). Both of these names (and others like International *Currency* Union) have been used on many occasions to describe Keynes’s original suggestion and subsequent versions of it.

Fifth, ‘debt forgiveness’ is for me a figure of speech not a sacred principle. Yet George castigates me on moral grounds for the use of this phrase while wholly ignoring the substantive argument I make about the role of the world’s biggest debtor (the US) and creditors (Japan and China). I can assure George and **openDemocracy** readers that I have indeed read *The Age of Consent* very thoroughly. Indeed, perhaps too thoroughly!

**Impossible, impractical, and dangerous**

The ‘strong globalisation’ thesis – the idea that there is one completely globalised international system – to which George subscribes does not reflect reality, and leads to unfortunate results and no real [solutions](http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/staff/gthompson/The%20Future%20of%20Globalization%20Feb%202002.pdf?ref=opendemocracy.net). ‘Strong globalisers’ either have excessively low expectations of what can still be done within the parameters of existing arrangements for global economic governance, or – like George – issue fanciful calls for new institutions of global democracy and reform.

What I try to do in my review of his book [*The Age of Consent*](http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/11/1057783340498.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) is to show two things: first, that George’s reform agenda is politically impossible to implement, and second, that it even if it were possible it could not work. A world parliamentary body, of whatever kind, would be nothing more than a talking shop that would rapidly be discredited and become irrelevant unless it heralded the beginnings of global governance. But to organise global governance democratically is altogether implausible; it would accrue too much power to itself and serve the needs of the poor and disadvantaged even worse than do the existing institutions.

What I propose instead – something ignored in George’s response – is a system based upon the principles of pluralism and decentralisation. Already, there are strong functional and regionally-based systems of governance emerging, and these are the ones that should be encouraged as against unnecessary and unrealistic global ones. Furthermore, I argue, it is not a good idea to promote the deeper ‘legalisation’ of the international system along the lines that George suggests because this will lead to even greater tensions and strife than already exists.

**The real alternative**

The inefficiency, inaction and inflexibility that are an essential feature of George’s proposals would undermine not enhance democracy.

So, for example, limited regulatory competition between diverse institutions of economic governance at regional level – a subject I touch on in my review – offers a better prospect for increasing the accountability of already existing global institutions than do abstract calls for their democratisation.

I argue that the great powers do occasionally have some justification for acting in concert without the full backing of the international community or agreement in a global, democratically-elected forum – but this must only happen in times of acute international tension which require immediate response or where vital national interests are threatened (even short of war).

The case of oil supplies is a good topical example. I am completely against the appropriation or plunder of oil resources by the western powers; but ‘the west’ does have a legitimate interest in safe and secure oil supplies at a reasonable price, just as poor countries without oil resources do. George and I, along with most of the rest of the world, would not be able to undertake our normal day-to-day activities or earn a living, if this were not the case.

The free flow of oil is a valid concern to Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development ([OECD](http://www.oecd.org/about/0,2337,en%5F2649%5F201185%5F1%5F1%5F1%5F1%5F1,00.html?ref=opendemocracy.net)) and other countries, however unpalatable this may be to those who object as a matter of course to anything those powers do to secure it. This is a case where actions seemingly aimed at protecting the few actually turn out to protect the interests of the majority.

It is also only one example of where – for all George’s references to my allegedly ‘patrician’ or ‘Victorian’ perspective – we need (as I concluded my review) “sensible and realistic, but still quite radical, analysis of the international system and the promotion of feasible alternative governance structures.”