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Creating a world government is easy. But getting people to join?

• By John Borland  
• August 9, 2007  

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/08/creating-a-worl/

Most of the attendees at this weeks’ Chaos Communications Camp spend a good bit of time thinking of ways to fix problems.

Still, most of those problems are a bit smaller in scale than the issue of world governance.

It’s a tall job, but this is precisely what George Zoche, by day a lightweight engine developer in Munich, spends his time thinking about. Today he offered campers here a vision of a new system that he and a handful of like-minded idealists are calling Transnational Republics. The idea is a kind of hack of world politics, designed to bring democracy back to economic and political systems that increasingly cross borders.

True, the United Nations exists already, but it misses the point, Zoche argues. The UN represents nation states, which can themselves be democratic, but the people’s will is lost by the time decisions are made at this second layer of organizations.

In the world of the United Transnational Republics, every individual in the world could elect to start their own Republic, or join another one. Each Republic would represent its own members in the governing body, bringing direct democracy to these cross-border problems.

"It is an expansion of the political system in place," Zoche said. "We’re not against nations or the UN, but we want to expand the systems in place. It’s  easier to add something than overthrow a system  completely."

OK, but why would anyone – say, actual countries or big corporations – pay attention? Power, both moral and monetary, the Transnationalists argue.

If billions of people signed up, they would be impossible to ignore, Zoche said. Which, fair enough, but there’s only 4181 citizens so far, a fair way to go. Granted, the movement has only been active a few years. 

Then there’s the money. The group has issued its own currency, called "Payola," designed to be the first truly world currency, and to give them financial power. Valued at a one-to-one ratio with the Euro, it sounds like a joke – but before dismissing it out of hand, it’s important to remember that Germany actually has a history of alternative currencies, with 16 regional or local "microcurrencies" in circulation, according to a recent paper by the Deutsche Bundesbank.

An idealistic fantasy? A practical political hack whose time may simply not yet have come? Or maybe a long-running prank? There’s a simple way to find out. Start a Transnational Republic yourself and see what happens.