The World Political Map

Abstract

We live in a divided world, and not the least evident and formidable of the divisions with which we are familiar are the many states which make up the jigsaw pattern of the world map. Professor Toynbee rightly reminds us that states exist to serve communities of individuals and that they have been accorded excessive importance. Doubtless if states were subordinated to a world authority, much of the violence, danger and fear implicit in everyday life would disappear. World government, however, is at present very much a hope, difficult of achievement; in a world of remarkably rapid change, men’s minds are, in contrast, slow to throw off old attachments, attitudes and beliefs. The real world of today is organised into over 150 states and, although they carry out service functions as do public utilities, they behave very much like Greek gods, so much so that, given the great powers which they wield, they need to be taken very seriously.

Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts, for objects of mere occasional interest, may be dissolved at pleasure; but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco … to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked upon with reverence.

(Edmund Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution, 1790)

A local state is not a god. It has been treated as a god. People have sacrificed their lives for it. But a local state is really just a public utility, like the gasworks, the electricity grid or the telephone system.

(Arnold Toynbee, The Times, 11 July 1972)