14. Globalism and Limited Government—Contrary or Complementary?: A New Agenda for a Neo(Libertarian) World Order

It would ostensibly appear that any libertarian approach to international affairs stands opposed to so-called “globalism,” or the loss of the sovereignty of the territorial or nation-state to more general (continental or global) government institutions. The underlying concern is that “more global” necessarily involves more centralization and bigger government. This contribution proceeds from the assumption that a globe-spanning state is an inevitability for the near or far future, and that it is important for libertarians to enter the discourse on globalism constructively rather than simply rejecting it as necessarily oppressive. To support this point, it is argued that contemporary libertarian shorthand around centralization might be muddying the waters, and that political globalism is not necessarily damaging to the notions of individual liberty or limited government—in fact, the nature of worldwide politics seems to lend itself to more circumscribed government. The contribution warns that libertarian boycott of discussions around how an (inevitable) worldwide polity should be constituted would in the long-term be bad for freedom, and concludes by proposing the basic contours of a libertarian agenda that could be advanced during the formalization of a new world order.