Wednesday, 23 January 2008

World Government

Other things equal, a world government ought to be a good thing. The deployment of resources, the creation of new resources, etc, could be planned so as to exploit (for everyone's benefit) the comparative advantages of different parts of the world.

Global companies already do this - albeit within the confines of their corporate footprint. They will seek to carry out labour intensive processes in low wage economies; component design may best be done where there is access to high tech knowledge and experience (preferably combined with low wages) such as India or China; assembly may need to be done where there is access to good infrastructure and communications; corporate strategy and direction will, of course, be carried out from the best locations in the world where there are access to good golf course, yacht moorings etc.

However, perhaps we already have one - a world government, that is! The people at the Davos meeting in Switzerland almost fit the bill. Even the FT almost agrees (here). There are nearly 1400 business executives at the meeting who, between them, control "22 per cent of the world’s market capitalisation, including the major banks behind the complex financial products that sparked the credit crunch". Why don't they, the FT suggests, sort out the crisis?

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