Secession As A Foil For World Government

Interview of Hans-Herman Hoppe by Le Québécois Libre, December 7, 2002:
 
QL: Political globalism tends towards the emergence of a world state. Is this phenomenon reversible? How should we oppose it? 
  
H.-H. H.: Interstate competition has indeed the tendency of leading ultimately to the formation of a world state. This phenomenon is reversible, however. For one, people should be reminded that it was precisely the near anarchistic structure of Europe as compared to China, for instance, that explains the rise of capitalism, i.e., the so-called European economic miracle: small states, in direct competition with others, must be moderate to their own population in order not to lose their most productive citizens.  
  
For instance, small states must engage in free trade rather than protectionism. All government interference with foreign trade forcibly limits the range of mutually beneficial inter territorial exchanges and thus leads to relative impoverishment at home as well as abroad. But the smaller a country, the more dramatic this effect will be. A country the size of the U.S. might attain comparatively high standards of living even if it renounced all foreign trade. In contrast, if a territory the size of a city or village engaged in protectionism, this would likely spell disaster or even death.  
  
In order to reverse the trend toward centralization and ultimately the creation of a world government, it is crucial that an alternative vision be promoted and popularized in public opinion. We must promote the idea of secession. Or more specifically, we must promote the idea of a world composed of tens of thousands of distinct districts, regions, and cantons, and hundred of thousands of independent free cities such as the present day oddities of Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Greatly increased opportunities for economically motivated migration would thus result, and the world would be one of small liberal governments economically integrated through free trade and an international commodity money such as gold.