Wednesday, September 16, 2009

United Nations = Cartel

Modern technology has opened up avenues of information and transportation that allow people to choose where they live.

This choice causes nations to compete with each other for valuable citizens. Israeli officials have publisized that part of their calculations in setting tax rates is ensuring that tax rates are low enough to be competitive.

This is good news for citizens: the competition on price will ensure that governments are run efficiently.

However, governments could form a cartel to fix prices and cooperate instead of compete. I suspect that the UN may become the ultimate government cartel. What enables that is that representatives to the UN are selected by governments, not individuals. Thereore, the UN serves government interests, and where those interests diverge from the interests of citizens, expext the UN to protect governments.

In this capacity, the UN serves as a way for smaller, less powerful nations to band together to protect themselves from their citizens.

I expect that in the future, the nations most active in the UN will be those with the most to gain: oppressive dictatorships.