Ex London Mayor Calls For Cities To Run The World

According to Ex London mayor, Ken Livingstone, he thinks that the world would be a much better place if there weren't large governments running the show, but instead city authorities ran the world.

Unfortunately, city authorities are still “government” and force by definition. So he isn't saying that he wants to get rid of government altogether.

But as far as running the state of things currently, is it really large governments and their well-known representatives that are largely in charge? Some reports have suggested that some sort of shadow government or group might be responsible for heavily manipulating international and domestic policy and if this is the case, then how might switching to the alternative of cities being in charge pose a solution to that problem?

Are mayors and other local figures going to be immune to corruption?

That hasn't shown to be the case in the past.

Specifically, Livingstone said that he is starting to think that it is “time to abolish governments” and to instead let cities run the world.

He says that high-ranking political officials are out-of-touch with the citizenry and therefore they cannot accurately represent them.

But can a city mayor do any better of a job, in trying to accurately represent millions or even hundreds of thousands of people at any one given time? I don't think so.

One thing he neglected to specify was whether or not his vision of a world run by smaller jurisdictions would be one that was organized in a voluntary manner or organized just the same as it is today--via coercion.

In theory, decentralization could result in more freedom for the people and might offer the opportunity for some jurisdictions to rise above the others in competition, with their adherence to liberty and freedom. And his idea that the solution to big government might be smaller government, isn't something new. There is a nationalist movement growing around the world with many who see that smaller and more localized government is going to be the solution, but we've seen from past experience how limited government can grow into a nightmare given the right amount of time.

Livingstone's comments came just as hundreds of thousands of people are heading to Germany this week to protest against the G20. They expect at least 100,000 people to protest in the streets over the weekend.