Governing a United Earth

By Paul VanRaden

July 4, 2023

A United Earth could improve billions of lives and give people much better government than the United Nations can provide with its weak charter and the veto power of dictators. In 1789, the United States replaced its initial Articles of Confederation with the US Constitution. In 1945, after the earth’s worst war, the United Nations replaced the former League of Nations. Today, people pay high taxes for national services but invest almost nothing to support global services. A new international government could provide more effective global services than volunteer national governments trying to run the world.

Taxes and services

People like to keep the money they earn. To keep our money, we pay some taxes to hire police to arrest thieves or to fund armed services to prevent other nations from invading and taking everything we own. Our governments also may provide roads, bridges, schools, research, etc. to benefit everyone or emergency services to help those in need. Families often budget their net income to buy the goods and services they feel have the most value. Governments also should budget their income to give people the most value for the taxes we pay.

Americans were upset with British taxes 250 years ago, formed a new government, and declared independence from Great Britain. Colonial representatives voted to stop paying taxes to their Kingdom and instead to tax themselves. Today, most US and UK citizens object to paying any taxes to any other government. Instead, their citizens pay many taxes to their own local or national governments.

Table 1 lists current taxes paid and income earned by an example US resident (the author). As percentage of salary, the taxes I paid in 2022 were 16.4% federal, 4.1% state, 2.8% county, 5.7% social security, 1.5% medicare, and 0.03% sales, for a total tax rate of 29.9%. But employee benefits of 15.3% for insurance and 4.0% for retirement matching are not taxed and add another 19.3% of salary. Also, on average, the social security tax of 5.7% is returned as income later in life. So, the effective tax rate as percentage of compensation is more like (29.9% – 5.7%) / 1.193 = 20.3%. The US government contributed some tax from me to the United Nations (UN), but it was < 0.1% of the federal tax and only a tiny 0.01% of my salary.

Table 1. Example income received and taxes collected from 1 U.S. resident in 2022.

Category	Item	Annual $	Percent of salary	Comments
Income	Gross salary	176,300	100.0 %	US Dept. of Agriculture
Taxes	Federal income tax	28,964	16.4 %	United States
	State income tax	7,233	4.1 %	Maryland
	County income tax	4,901	2.8 %	Prince Georges county
	Social security tax	9,114	5.7 %	United States
	Medicare tax	2,439	1.5 %	United States
	Sales/gasoline tax	50	0.03 %	6% MD sales, $0.43 / gallon
	Property tax	0	0.0 %	I pay rent instead
	UN share of federal	23	0.01 %	US pays 28% of UN budget
	Total tax	52,701	29.9 %	Sum of rows 2-8
Net income	Salary minus taxes	123,599	70.1 %	Row 1 minus previous row
Employee benefits	Retirement matching	7,052	4.0 %	3% match, 1% automatic
	Medical/life insurance	27,000	15.3 %	75% share of premium
Benefits	Total	34,052	19.3 %	Sum of previous 2 rows
Compensation	Salary plus benefits	210,352	119.3 %	Sum of row 1 + previous

Local taxes often pay for local services, regional taxes for regional services, national taxes for national services, and world taxes for world services. Everyone on earth pays extremely low world taxes and gets extremely little world government. The UN spends $0.40 (40 cents) per person per year to govern the 8 billion residents of earth. Wealthier taxpayers must pay more than 40 cents to the annual budget. In 2022 I had to pay the United Nations $23 indirectly as part of my $28,964 federal income tax. That year the U.S. government spent $20,000 per person for its 335 million residents compared to the 40 cents spent by the United Nations. Thus, the US federal budget spends 50,000 times more per person than the UN budget.

International governments such as the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) also spend much less per resident than the national governments of their member nations. In Europe, Germany and France spend 25 times more per person than the EU spends. In Africa, the governments of Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa spend hundreds or thousands of times more per person than the AU spends. Most international governments such as the UN, EU, or AU recommend policies but have little money to enforce them. Other international agreements such as the Organization of American States, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or Arab League may have even less control or lack any separate budget.

International decisions require member nations to adopt the policies, but members can choose to ignore the policies or cancel their membership, as the United Kingdom did when exiting the EU in 2020. Many former British colonies exited the British Empire during the 1900’s, but many rejoined into the Commonwealth of Nations (CN). Several other nations have joined the CN since then. Nations can be suspended or expelled by the CN after military coups, for ignoring democratic principles, or for violating human rights. The Commonwealth adopted a new Charter in 2013 and now includes 56 nations, over 30% of the world’s population, and 20% of the world’s land. The CN is still headed by the King of England and does official business in English, but member nations govern themselves almost independently.

Examples of global, regional, national, state, and local government spending in 2022 are in Table 2. State budgets within the US are often about half as large per resident as the national budget. County or city budgets are often more than half of the state budget per resident. In 2022, my own county spent about $5,000 per resident, Maryland spent about $8,000, and the US government about $20,000. Each of those budgets and spending levels makes the $0.40 budget of the UN look trivial. Taxpayers spend a fortune to defend their territory, but their nations spend almost nothing to make the whole world better and friendlier.

Table 2. Spending by local, regional, national, and international governments compared to population.

Government	Members	Population	Annual Budget	Spending / Capita
		(millions)	(billion US $)	($/person/year)
United Nations	World total	7,964	3.2	0.40
	India	1,420	549	387
	China	1,410	5,389	3,821
	Japan	124	940	7,581
	United Kingdom	68	700	10,294
European Union	Europe (EU) total	448	184	411
	Germany	83	948	11,422
	France	65	714	10,985
African Union	Africa total	1,300	0.6	0.46
	Nigeria	219	40	183
	Egypt	108	117	1,083
	South Africa	61	120	1,967
United States	50 states	335	6,800	20,299
	Texas	30	250	8,333
	Florida	22	102	4,636
	New York	20	212	10,600
	Vermont	0.6	7	11,667
California	State total	39	263	6,744
	Los Angeles county	10	45	4,500
Maryland	State total	6.2	49	7,903
	Prince Georges county	0.97	4.6	4,742

Wars and peace

New governments often arise during and after major wars but can also result from peaceful cooperation such as joining together in the European Union from 1958 to present or rewriting a national constitution. Civil wars can split nations or military coups and dictators can end democracies, but people can also build democracies by voting to take power back from leaders who misuse theirs. This section reviews historical changes in national and international taxation and governance.

Historians often measure a government’s success by the land area or population governed multiplied by how long it lasts. Governments can grow by conquering new land or by voluntarily joining with neighboring nations or even with people of distant lands. Wars of conquest may give only short-term gains of territory if other nations cooperate to reclaim the land stolen, as Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, and Hirohito discovered. To survive, a government should defend its territory from invasion, form defensive alliances, or be friendly with neighbors so that border trouble is rare. Ideally, cultures can explore, trade, and interact somewhat peacefully such as Marco Polo’s trip to China, the Dutch East India company’s transport of spices, or Lewis and Clark’s journey across Indian land, but the initial friendly encounters can lead to later, large conflicts.

Ancient Egypt thrived for thousands of years with strong, central government and investments in large infrastructure projects. China and India had early, advanced, large governments. Rome maintained a large empire for hundreds of years. Mongol and later Russian empires controlled large parts of northern Asia. In more recent centuries, England and Spain both used naval power to discover new continents and control other nations. Such empires governed up to 20-30% of the world’s population for hundreds of years. Explorers and emigrants to the discovered lands were expected to support the empire by trading with or stealing from the citizens of those lands.

The Revolutionary War in 1776 caused 13 colonies that separated from the British Kingdom to adopt Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union in 1781. The colonies had distrusted government and made their initial federal rules very weak. The colonies also previously strongly objected to taxation without representation, and after joining as states the new US government had representation without taxation. The states collected taxes but could not be forced to send any money to the US government. A few years later, the states admitted their mistake, introduced federal property taxes, and adopted a much stronger Constitution to keep them united. Delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia quickly agreed that the previous very weak Articles of Confederation could not easily be fixed, and instead they replaced those rules with the US Constitution used since 1789.

The US Civil War required much more central control and central funding both in the northern and southern states. In the north, federal income taxes began in 1862 with initial tax rates of 3-5% that increased up to 10% during the war, later dropped to 2% or 0% in some decades, and since 1913 have had upper rates ranging anywhere from 7% up to 94% during World War II. During the Civil War, the Confederate war effort was financed partly by taxes but mainly by government debt that caused inflation averaging 1500% per year in the south. Historical Income Tax Rates and Brackets, 1862-2021 | Tax Foundation gives the full history of US federal income tax rates.

World War I caused many nations to form a League of Nations (LN) in 1920 to keep the post-war peace. By 1935, 58 members had joined the LN but those did not include the US. The US Senate had approved joining the LN by a majority but not by the 2/3 majority required by the US Constitution. Rules of the LN required unanimous approval for almost any action which severely limited its power, but the LN broke its own rules to expel the Soviet Union after the Soviets invaded Finland in 1939. The LN Executive Council had 4 permanent members (Britain, France, Italy, and Japan). Only 20 years later the first 2 and the last 2 of those 4 countries fought on opposite sides of the worst war in world history. The closing statement of the LN in 1946 said “Let us boldly state that aggression wherever it occurs and however it may be defended, is an international crime, that it is the duty of every peace-loving state to resent it and employ whatever force is necessary to crush it…”

World War II caused many nations to form a new United Nations to replace the LN but again they gave the UN little power. The 1945 UN Charter gives the world government little ability to govern or tax, like the 1781 Articles of Confederation for the US government. Unfortunately, the UN Charter is also almost impossible to amend. The only amendments were in 1965 and 1973 simply to increase the sizes of the Security Council and of the Economic and Social Council after many more nations joined the UN. Getting 2/3 of the general assembly and 2/3 of all member countries to vote for an amendment could be possible but getting all 5 permanent members of the Security Council to give up their veto power may not be possible.

The UN Charter has not been amended in the last 50 years (or the US Constitution in the last 30 years), but a few UN rules were changed. The Soviet Union was a permanent member of the Security Council and was able to veto any UN action, but the Soviet Union was not permanent. When it disappeared, Russia stole the vote that previously was shared with other Soviet members. That vote should be rotated among the former Soviet republics such as to Ukraine every 5^th year, or more often to make up for lost decades. The permanent vote of China previously belonged to Taiwan but was transferred to Beijing. One other rule change was that a vote of Abstain is now counted as a Yes. Major nations and “permanent” members of the security council may prefer a weak UN, but most citizens of Earth could have better lives with better international government.

The UN authorized use of force in the Korean War to restore democracy to the south and reunify the country but only the first goal was met. The UN had almost no role in the Vietnam War but did authorize the first Gulf War in 1990 to free Kuwait after Iraq’s invasion. In 2003 the US could not get a majority of the UN security council to authorize the Iraq War but invaded anyway. The UN cannot enforce its decisions or conduct the military actions it authorizes because it employs no soldiers, only peacekeepers. The US military budget is > 100 times larger than the UN peacekeeping budget ($753 billion vs. $6.4 billion / year) and is only for the defense of 1 nation. The US government also has about 50 times more employees than the UN employs across the world (2 million vs. 40,000).

Multinational corporations also have budgets far exceeding that of the UN. A few such as Walmart and Amazon employ more than a million people, generate revenues of about $500 billion, and have annual profits of $10-100 billion. Large national governments can regulate the domestic activities of large corporations, but governments in smaller or poorer countries have little chance to enforce different rules for their people. Large international governments such as the EU can create common markets and regulations to benefit both consumers and corporations. Some international non-government organizations also have large budgets such as the Gates Foundation spending $7 billion per year, but charity and research are not good substitutes for law and order and jobs. We need effective international government to give some political control to voters instead of all control to corporations and major nations.

Beyond the UN

The UN Charter does not prevent UN members from joining a more effective United Earth (UE). Most nations already have joined several formal international organizations to agree on common rules and to coordinate their trade (NAFTA), police (Interpol), global investment (IMF and World Bank), or military (NATO) functions. If people foresee more benefits than costs from a stronger international government, their nations will join and fund the government to get the benefits.

The UE Charter should value the decisions of leaders chosen in free elections more than the opinions of dictators. Earth’s citizens cannot vote directly in world elections or referendums if they cannot vote freely within their own countries. To obtain more power in the world government, each nation must give more power to its own citizens. Democracy ratings are available for each nation and are updated frequently (The Economist Democracy Index - Wikipedia), just like census counts of population. Each nation’s vote should be proportional to population multiplied by democracy rating. Table 3 shows the vote calculations for the largest 25 countries by population.

Table 3. Votes based on democracy rating for the 25 most populous nations.

Rank	Country	Total Population	Democracy rating	Votes	World Vote%
1	China	1,397,715,000	1.94	27	10.2
2	India	1,366,417,750	7.04	96	36.1
3	United States	328,239,520	7.85	26	9.8
4	Indonesia	270,625,570	6.71	18	6.8
5	Pakistan	216,565,320	4.13	9	3.4
6	Brazil	211,049,530	6.78	14	5.3
7	Nigeria	200,963,600	4.23	9	3.4
8	Bangladesh	163,046,160	5.99	10	3.8
9	Russian Federation	144,373,540	2.28	3	1.1
10	Mexico	127,575,530	5.25	7	2.6
11	Japan	126,264,930	8.33	11	4.1
12	Ethiopia	112,078,730	3.17	4	1.5
13	Philippines	108,116,620	6.73	7	2.6
14	Egypt, Arab Rep.	100,388,070	2.93	3	1.1
15	Vietnam	96,462,110	2.73	3	1.1
16	Congo, Dem. Rep.	86,790,570	1.48	1	0.4
17	Turkey	83,429,620	4.35	4	1.5
18	Germany	83,132,800	8.8	7	2.6
19	Iran, Islamic Rep.	82,913,910	1.96	2	0.8
20	Thailand	69,625,580	6.67	5	1.9
21	France	67,059,890	8.07	5	1.9
22	United Kingdom	66,834,400	8.28	6	2.3
23	Italy	60,297,400	7.69	5	1.9
24	South Africa	58,558,270	7.05	4	1.5
25	Tanzania	58,005,460	5.1	3	1.1

A nation that improves its democracy rating will automatically increase its power. A nation that accepts more immigrants to increase population will automatically increase its power. Nations whose citizens leave will get less power, and dictators who take power from the people will get less power in the UE. The UE will intensely debate the exact definition of democracy, decide on the measures, and examine in detail each nation’s progress. Nations can still choose methods to conduct their own national elections and degrees of press freedom, but then must document and convince the world how fair their elections are.

Using math to determine representation is as old as the US Constitution. From 1789 to 1868, Article 1, Section 2 used this math: “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.” Thus, each state got 1 representative for each 30,000 (free person + slave*3/5 + Indian*0) plus 2 senators. US Constitutional amendments require 3/4 of the states or 2/3 of both the House and Senate. A 2/3 vote of the Senate can approve a treaty or remove a President and 2/3 votes of both the House and Senate can overrule a President’s veto. After the Civil War, if any state denied some voters the right to vote, Constitutional Amendment 14, section 2, proportionally reduced that state’s vote count in the electoral college.

The EU Council since 2014 uses math known as qualified majority voting. It requires a 55% majority of countries, or 72% if acting on a proposal from neither the Commission nor from the High Representative, and the countries must represent a 65% majority of the EU population. At least 4 countries must vote against a proposal to block it. Before 2014, the EU Council used a nonlinear function similar to square root of population size to weight each country’s vote, giving small countries more and large countries less power than in a pure democracy. Several major action items still require a unanimous vote.

Most Canadians live closer to Americans than to their fellow citizens, but Canadians have no say in American laws that greatly affect their daily lives. An example was during the recent covid crisis. The virus reached both countries at about the same time. The border was closed in both directions in March 2020 and reopened to fully vaccinated travelers a year and a half later in November 2021. The US covid death rate was already twice as high as in Canada in April 2020, and the daily death rate and total deaths as percentage of population remained about twice as high in US as in Canada until November 2021. The US border closure had little benefit and made no more sense than closing all borders between 50 US states would have. State borders were not closed (not even Hawaii), and the US-Canada border should have remained open.

The U.S. Articles of Confederation in 1777 said in Article XI that “Canada acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the united states, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this union...” Canadians and Americans could have been fellow citizens already for 250 years. Becoming fellow citizens makes sense now but is not likely. Instead, Canada and the United States and many other countries could join into a larger democratic union across the earth (UE). Becoming UE citizens does not require giving up your national citizenship or your state driver’s license. We can cooperate to create better government, and everyone can participate in its benefits.

Rich people often prefer no taxation because they can get what they want directly. Their children will still get excellent private education even if the government provides no schools. They can quickly go where they want by private jet, helicopter, or toll road even if the government provides poor or no public transportation. Their gated communities or mansions or castles will remain safe even if the government does not police the public streets. If not taxed, their children can inherit 100% of their wealth. When taxed, rich people prefer local tax so that more of the benefits come directly back to them, their community, and their children.

Poor people often prefer more taxation and prefer global, national, or regional taxes instead of only local taxes. Income, property, and inheritance taxes collected mainly from richer people and their children can provide benefits mainly to the poorest people and their children. Local taxes collected only from poor neighborhoods may provide only poor schools and few services. A wider tax base promotes much wider equality. Poor people could migrate closer to where the rich taxpayers live, but rich people use national taxes to catch the immigrants and deport them back to poor countries to prevent equality. The main purposes of border walls and border police are to prevent poor people from voting with their feet as my ancestors did.

Earth’s taxpayers will support their national governments transferring more tax to an international government if the UE is many times more effective than the UN. The global tax rate could be reported separately on your tax statement to remind you each year how little global tax you pay compared to local, state, and national taxes. You could have an individual option to transfer a portion of your federal tax to the UE. Currently the US federal tax return (form 1040) asks if $3 of my tax should be transferred to the Presidential Election fund. The Maryland tax return (form 502) asks if I want to contribute funds for the Chesapeake Bay, Endangered Species, Developmental Disabilities, Cancer Research, or Fair Campaign Financing. Neither asks if I want to support effective international government.

European nations could join the UE as separate members or jointly as the EU. The main difference would be a more representative vote if they join separately or more central power if together. Direct elections for each nation’s delegates may be preferred, but some countries might restrict UE appointments only to members of the ruling party. US Senators and Representatives are directly elected instead of being appointed by the state’s governor. Appointing rather than directly electing its UE representatives could further reduce a nation’s democracy index. The UE needs clear rules governing how to join and exit the union. The US Civil War may have started partly because the words “perpetual union” were in the Articles of Confederation but not in the Constitution. When joining, nations should understand if they can later secede from the earth.

Final steps are to write the UE Charter, revise and adopt it, elect or appoint the government, fund it, and obey it. Main benefits are that decisions would be enforced, world policing would be done by world police, and nations would not need to volunteer their troops to fight in faraway places and pretend it was for national defense. The UE will provide global services and preserve world order using their own staff hired by global taxes devoted to maintaining and improving the whole world. National governments will only need to provide national services, just as state taxes provide state services and local taxes provide local services.

Reasons to join UE are that joint defense can be stronger and more efficient than national defense and is why nations such as Sweden and Finland join NATO, for example. Recovery from natural disasters will be easier with global reserve funds than with national, state, or local reserve funds. Travel could be much easier with global borders than with national borders and is why the US does not restrict its citizens to live within state borders. We all might have more job opportunities to work in other UE member nations, just as citizens of previous global empires did. We could pay for goods and services using Earthos as a common currency, just as many people in Europe pay for their goods and services in Euros since 2000 instead of Deutsch marks, French francs, etc. Citizens of many other nations on earth may prefer to unite instead of remaining autonomous, just as most nations in Europe did.

The UN might last for decades or centuries in its current, dysfunctional form or slowly evolve into a useful government. Many national governments prefer a weak UN so that they can have more power. People, especially poor people, should prefer a much stronger international government that would value their individual vote. Continuing the current UN is easier than designing a better government, debating its exact rules, and getting nations to join. With help from France 250 years ago, 13 colonies declared and won their independence from the British to become the United States. Today, with instant global communication, people from many countries could declare their dependence and join very quickly into the United Earth. The earth soon could and should have effective international government.

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