In this forced bargaining situation the strain toward consensus would push along two axes of debate: one of advocates trying to persuade others to accept their sociopolitical proposals; the other of compromisers seeking a middle ground--a combination or revision of other positions. If the debate remains on the plane formed by these axes, no consensual solution will be found. At best, a bare majority might be persuaded to accept one or another set of principles.

Regardless, we could explore a middle position in some detail and stipulate one as the only achievable or most popular solution. But what are these principles? How can exchange, authoritative, and coercive proposals be combined? How is the world government to be constructed--with an hereditary monarch and elected parliament sharing power? Or will it consist of a one-party parliament and freely elected president? Would anarchists, liberals, and conservative democrats in one corner, monarchists, theocrats, and authoritarians in another, communists and national socialists in a third, compromise on some mixture of their favored societies and political systems? The possibility of any such trade-off among them is incredible, even under the threat of death. For example, would liberals submit to an authoritarian world government in which a communist might be president or minister of security? Or, abstractly, could a Moslem or Roman Catholic vote for a society that was hedonistic and relativistic, partially governed by the masses, led by a secular government at whose head might be an atheist? It is one thing to be socialized from birth into such a society, as for a Moslem or Catholic in America, or have such a society evolve over a lifetime, as in Japan; it is another to agree to suddenly live under what one has always perceived as alien or evil institutions and laws.

Surely, all societies have their dissidents--those who are antagonistic to the prevailing social and political institutions and seek to change them. Many Americans now prefer more traditional values and a greater stress on responsibility, law, and order, as the growing popularity of religion and the growth in political conservatism attest. Also, in totalitarian systems many undoubtedly favor more freedom, albeit more of a traditional authoritarian variety than the freedom of an exchange society. Such dissident minds will provide an intellectual force toward some compromise position in the Convention among the three sociopolitical types. They might even persuade advocates to defect from the pure types and unite to garner more votes for some middle sociopolitical solution than are cast for any other.

This possibility becomes more credible with the realization that many minds are from nations that lie in the overlap between the major types of societies, such as Japan, Thailand, Israel, Brazil, Senegal, and Zambia. And compromising minds could select one such sociopolitical system as a model. Unfortunately, however, there are no convincing criteria for choosing one. Even apparently middle-ground nations differ greatly among themselves, as do South Korea, Mexico, and Egypt.

In any case, any middle proposal should provoke considerable and adamant disagreement from a majority or near majority of the billions of participants and a desire to explore other alternatives. This is reasonable, given that discussion is still open and no final "accept or die" vote has yet to be cast.

In sum, a middle solution to the bargaining would surely be complex, arbitrary, and unconvincing for the august role of the principles of justice. But this is true only if the proposals remain in the plane of the two axes--of advocates and compromisers.

Some participants, however, may not restrict their proposals to this plane. They could rise above it, seek a solution which gives almost everyone what they want. Such a solution is similar to that for bargaining over economic resources, where the issue is who gets which slice of the pie. If resources are perceived as fixed and exhaustible, the bargaining situation is very difficult. But resources may be expandable--the pie might be made even bigger.¹ If so, then each could have in absolute amount what he desires and possibly even more. And the quest for a solution could be then transformed from a first-order concern with equitably slicing the pie to a second-order search for that which maximizes the growth of the pie.

Is there such a metasolution for New Society? Yes. It is simple and clear.

People have a right to form any community of their choice.

Would this be the consensual principle? Surely a number of questions and issues would be raised about its terms, implementation, and enforcement. Allied or facilitative principles probably would be suggested. But, isolating the idea of this principle for the moment shows its powerful logic and appeal. It grants each mind the right to achieve in concert with others of similar beliefs their own community in the New World. That is, each could found and try his own utopia. Equalitarians, anarchists, Buddhists, Hindus, democrats, capitalists, monarchists, and all combinations and refinements could set up with kindred spirits their own lifestyle, culture, society, politics.

Of course, this entails something quite negative to many: coexisting with communities one finds evil, obnoxious, repulsive. But, given a choice of being able to live under one's chosen sociopolitical system and tolerating the existence elsewhere of repulsive communities, and deadlock in the Convention with the death of each and all the outcome, most would surely choose the former.

Moreover, the Free Choice Principle comes tolerable close to what most people would understand (if not immediately, then through discussion) already exists on earth cross-nationally and across subcultures within numerous nations. People now live in independent and often quite dissimilar nation-states (communities) with their own sociocultural and sociopolitical systems. Repugnant and even enemy communities already exist elsewhere. The possibilities inherent in the Principle, therefore, would not create a new psychological situation. In fact, it appears at least to allow people to reproduce communities to which they are accustomed, while also providing opportunity (essentially to intellectuals and the enslaved, imprisoned, and exploited) to alter, reform, or scrap what is undesirable about them.

So far the Free Choice Principle, or something like it, looks agreeable. But how the terms of the Principle might be defined is a question. While the macroconditions of the Global Convention and our general psychological principles are not sufficiently constraining to suggest precise terms and definitions, recall that the Conveners are extracting from the overall bargaining patterns and types of ideas, concepts, proposals, and so on. A sensible and central pattern of definitions that could thereby be attached to the Principle is the following.

A community likely would be defined as a territorial society based on common interests or organized according to particular meanings, values, ideas, and politics. A community would therefore manifest a specific socio-political ideology. Note especially that, by definition, a community has a division of labor, system of communication, and explicit geographic boundaries containing its members. This would facilitate the demarcation, independence, and sovereignty of communities in the New World and accordingly help ensure that its members can pursue their own preferred, first-order solution.²

By "right to form" any community "of their choice" the Principle would surely mean that people can voluntarily contract to establish a community. A community would thus be a formal and overarching voluntary social contract.³ It would confer certain rights on people within the community and correlative obligations and duties. Those who were unwilling to meet the conditions of the contract or whom contractees might not want as members of the community thereby would be excluded. But members would be obligated to satisfy the conditions of their membership in the community in return for rights granted under the contract. This implies that people could contract to be slaves or indentured servants of a community, or others could be excluded by virtue of race, religion, or politics. The right to form a community would not confer a right of membership in any community. The corollary right of communities to exclude "undesirables" appears necessary for global agreement on the Principle.⁴

This raises another question. Would "any" community mean any, literally? Logically, one could not form a community inconsistent with the Principle itself as so far defined. People could not relinquish the right conferred by the Principle to form another community if they so desired.

Nothing in the Principle implies that a community must allow itself to be subdivided, its land to become a patchwork quilt of undesirable, dissident communities. There is also nothing against communities permitting this. Thus, the "any" would mean "any for which territory can be found or is permitted within another community."

Obviously, much must be worked out in practice here. If a majority in a border region of a community wishes to form a separate community, are they free to do so, even though a minority in the region opposes them? If the laws of a community permit a smaller community to be formed within it by buying land (such as for a commune of 200 people), does the smaller, by virtue of the Principle, become independent of all laws of the larger? Surely, we need some framework within which such questions can be judged and appropriate common and positive law evolved. I will return to this need after discussing a related, second just principle.

People have a right to leave any community.

This Principle is a natural concomitant of the first. The right to form or join another community could not therefore be abrogated by hostile groups and restrictive emigration laws preventing people from leaving for that purpose. This principle guarantees free exit from any community.

One question immediately arises. What about criminals simply moving from community to community, violating their laws but invoking the Liberation Principle when caught? Doubtless any such freedom to leave a community will exclude those violating its criminal laws. This itself poses a number of problems. A crime in one society (working on holy day, prostitution, public nude bathing) may be permitted in another. Some crimes also may be distinctly political or labeled crimes in order to eliminate or imprison certain classes of people. The wrong religion or social or political beliefs might entail years in a reeducation or work camp.

The problem of criminals likely would be handled as it is now among states which allow (relatively) unrestricted emigration. Cross-community, anticriminal police and detective organizations would develop; extradition agreements between communities would be arranged. As now, culturally or socially specific crimes would no doubt be excluded from these agreements, as would actual or alleged political crimes. Nor would political refugees be considered criminals. If not before, then surely here arises the question of intercommunity enforcement and this requires consideration of the intercommunity system itself.

Who will guarantee the two principles? Who will determine their applicability and interpretation in ambiguous or new situations? How will small communities be secured against larger, more powerful ones? How will conflict between communities be resolved or judgments about intercommunity disputes made? These questions must be answered; otherwise, the attractiveness of the two principles in the Convention is unlikely to overcome the fear that they are mere words--that in the New World such rights would soon vanish through conquest by an imperialistic community or ignored by an unscrupulous world elite. After all, on this score, a large number of minds in the Convention have personal experience as victims of aggression or of an elite.

All this leads naturally to constitutional principles.

Now, as I have argued elsewhere, anarchy is not necessarily undesirable.⁶ It is an exchange--spontaneous--society without a government that monopolizes force. It is a pure social field.⁷ International relations is presently such a society and field. States have evolved a system of common law, international organizations, and a confederal form of government to facilitate their relations. The system has the virtue of enabling diverse cultures and sociopolitical systems to live together in relative peace,⁸ while each state can develop its own potential and people have some freedom to move from one to another of a majority of states.

For these reasons, and since people are familiar with international relations, it might serve as a model system for the Free Choice and Liberation Principles. A number of minds might therefore argue for a two-step arrangement. First, agree to the two principles and settle communities in the New World accordingly. Second, the communities then could hold an intercommunity conference to establish a type of world organization similar to the United Nations.

This approach might be especially attractive to pluralists, libertarians, and internationalists. It seems to allow maximum flexibility for communities to develop their relations, to seek their own sense of social justice. It promotes diversity and experimentation. It facilitates the very cross-pressures essential to minimizing extensive social violence.⁹ And in the clash of interests between communities and between community elites and their subjects, unwritten constitutional principles would emerge as a balance of powers--an overarching, implicit structure of expectations.

But however attractive this argument might seem initially, upon reflection we should note that international relations has moved historically through many types of intercommunity or interstate sociopolitical systems. There have been empires and hierarchical systems; coercive and authoritative systems. Athenian, Roman, Chinese, Spanish, Medieval European, British, and contemporary Soviet (USSR) systems are competing international models. We have no clear and compelling reason to suppose that communities formed in the New World under the two Just Principles alone would establish or maintain a modern-style international system; that individuals would long be free to exercise their rights under the principles. Justice in the abstract Convention of Minds could well become involuntary slavery in the New World. Were no democratic or libertarian mind sensitive to this possibility, I am sure the millions of those now enslaved would be. But this mass experience need not be invoked. Anarchists of all varieties have not been popular in any modern society. The vast majority of people seem to believe that central government is absolutely essential at least for law and order.

On these grounds I assume that the Convention would move toward some kind of global government with enough force to secure the principles, were they accepted, and the independence of the communities thus formed. But to raise the possibility of such a government appears again to mire the Convention's debate in first-order solutions--whether the global government overseeing the metasolution should be authoritarian, totalitarian, or libertarian.

But this first-order debate need not be rekindled. For the question is no longer "What kind of sociopolitical structure will I live under?" It is, rather, "What kind of government will guarantee and protect my right to live in the community I choose?" A consensual solution to this question is possible. Recognizing again that we are dealing with patterns of solutions, a likely cluster of constitutional principles central to the proposals and debate probably entail the following:

• sovereign equality of all communities,

• restrictive purposes of government,

• representative government,

• limited government.

I will discuss each of these in a separate section.

All communities are sovereign and equal in their rights.

Regardless of population, area, resources, or sociopolitical system, communities thereby would be equal in whatever formal rights, privileges, or obligations they have under a global constitution.

Is such a principle generally acceptable? Much depends on the other constitutional principles; but leaving them aside for the moment, this one clearly benefits all people. It guarantees each person maximum freedom to found and develop his own social justice; to proselytize; to be secure in his community regardless of how small or different it is. And each person has the right to leave his community if he loses sympathy with it or feels, along with some others, that he could found one better.

The most difficult aspect of this principle is the meaning of sovereignty. This must not rule out domestic intervention by the global government, for then the Just Principles could not be enforced. Sovereignty therefore might be defined as that reserved to communities except as power is delegated to government for the specific and limited purposes of enforcing and protecting the Just Principles. This now leads to some formal limitation on the global government's purposes.

We can also imagine considerable dissatisfaction with focusing on aggression alone. Many would point out that security also depends on resolving disputes before they get to the stage of aggression; that, as the United Nations has learned, aggression is one dimension of a multidimensional concept, which is keeping the peace between sovereign and equal communities and facilitating cooperative and functional intercourse,

All this gives us a reasonable and probable expectation about what might be expressed in the Restricted Purpose Principle. But before stating it we need a label for the global government. Consistent with what has been said so far and as will be discussed below, this must be a federal government. For convenience, and without any assumption that such a name would in fact be chosen, I will call this the World Federation (or simply the Federation). This stated, the Restricted Purposes Principle might well contain these aims:

The exclusive purposes of the World Federation are to secure the Just Principles, resolve disputes, prevent aggression and threats to the peace, and facilitate cooperative relations.

To suggest such other purposes would be to again evoke a first-order division in the Convention over basic sociopolitical concepts and proposals--again provoking debate among communists, democratic socialists, capitalists, libertarians, authoritarians, and welfare liberals. Consensus should be found on questions of securing and protecting one's particular sociopolitical solution--one's community. But beyond that would require global government regulation, control, and intervention, that would enable the Federation to override and forcibly alter a community. Global economic and social planning would require extensive control; welfare goals are achievable only by favoring some communities; redistributing wealth between communities involves using coercion to take income from some to give to others. All this is to abet some sociopolitical solutions over others. Of course, it could also be argued that such policies only bring into rational and socially just use what would otherwise benefit some communities by accident of their geographic location. And that some general problems, such as global pollution or resource depletion can only be attacked centrally.

In any case, minds attentive to current events would remember the great difficulties the United Nations has had in developing global welfare mechanisms to meet such purposes, including control over seabed resources. While participants in the Convention do not know their future resources, they do have opinions on questions of income transfer, welfare, public ownership, resource control, bureaucracies, planning, public benevolence, conservation, private responsibility, competition, incentives, and so on. And these attitudes comprise their sociopolitical ideologies. Invoking them would again divide the Convention. In other words, the only acceptable consensual constitutional statement of purpose would be something resembling the Restricted Purposes Principle.

Now, as in any constitutional document guided by this principle, the primary purpose--securing the Just Principles--must allow Federal intervention in community affairs if a person is being denied his right to leave and join or found another community more to his liking. This function alone would necessitate certain Federal police and investigative powers and world judicial and punitive machinery. This machinery would also be required to secure an individual's right to combine with others in forming a new community. It is to this machinery of government that the last two constitutional principles would be directed.

This aside, any nonrepresentative solution would run afoul of the first-order, ideological, and cultural divisions in the Convention. It could not be consensual.

Therefore, the most likely form of World Federation is representative. There are many forms of representative government; various kinds of legislative, parliamentary, and presidential systems; diverse ways representatives could be selected. And there is the question of who or what would be represented--people, social groups, communities, or interests?

First, the Sovereign Equality Principle implies that all communities be represented in the Federation and collectively have strong power over Federal policies and actions. However, as would surely be recognized, in the Convention there will be a multitude of very small communities and relatively few large ones. A small minority of the world's peoples and outlying cultures and ideologies could determine Federal laws and policies and cause them to favor a minority at the cost of many. Since the Convention of Minds is composed of all minds, each equal in the debate and voting, this consequence of the Sovereign Equality Principle should be widely unfavorable.

But would totalitarians and authoritarians accept some proportional representation in the Federation for their people? Yes, for they have no choice. The majority of people would decide the issue in the Convention for representation, and the rest would have to go along. Their compensation is the chance to set up their ideologically favored community, subject to the Constitutional condition that its members are to be represented collectively and proportionally in the Federation. Their protection is that their community would also be represented equally with other communities in a second chamber of the legislature.

Thus, some kind of representation of peoples in one chamber as well as communities in another should also be worked out, resulting in a bicameral legislature of some type. In any case, the details of this representation and the overall form of the representative government need not be determined here. Detailed constitution-making is well beyond those principles which would naturally and rationally surface in the Convention. The Convention itself would probably leave it to a separate constitutional convention, once the Constitutional Principles are voted on and accepted.¹⁰

Constitutional details aside, some kind of representational principle is likely to be supported, perhaps in this form:

The World Federation shall be a representative government, with all communities equally represented and their peoples represented on a direct or proportional basis.

One meaning must be clear. "Representational government" surely would refer to a family of governmental forms all sharing these characteristics. The major policies and actions of the Federation would be determined or approved by representatives whose election or delegation are not dictated or controlled by an actual or shadow world government. A one-party state, where, as in the Soviet Union, a political party is the real (shadow) government, is not representative. Although there are elections and "representatives" in the Soviet Union and the top officials are elected or appointed from elected bodies, the Communist Party controls the candidates, the election machinery, the representative bodies, and government administration.

By contrast, as a truly representative government, the Federation would be responsive to the interests of communities and peoples through their delegates and representatives, and there would be an actual and continuing contest for legislative and executive power among advocates of opposing policies. That is, the top decision makers could be changed according to open and regular procedures accessible to all delegates and representatives. But this does not mean that the chief executive would necessarily be elected by the people. He may be elected or selected through negotiation among representatives and delegates. He may be appointed by one legislative house upon the recommendation of another, as with the Secretary General of the United Nations. These constitutional details aside, the relevant meaning of representative government should be clear.

But how to limit a government, not only at the moment of birth but for generations or even centuries? Diverse proposals could be expected in the Convention, and the history of limited, constitutional, and parliamentary democracies would surely be discussed. There would also be much ground for ideological play. Nonetheless, nearly all should have a vested interest in a limited government. No one at this stage could expect to control the government (remember: what body they will inhabit, what resources they will have, what large groups they will be among are unknown). So the question is not whether to limit or minimize the Federation, but how to institutionalize an enduring limitation consistent with its purpose.

As the Conveners organize and pattern the Convention's discussion, we could expect several major themes about limiting government. These should concern (coercive and authoritative) power's delegation and specification, division and balance, and source.

Government is limited by delegating powers to it for explicit purposes and reserving all remaining power to the people and, in this case, the communities. Such exclusive, limited purposes are already embodied in the Restricted Purposes Principle, but their delegation might be clarified. However, this is no sure route to a lasting limitation, for delegated powers can expand by an ever broadening interpretation of government's purposes.

Government also is limited by dividing power horizontally among different governing units, each with its own geographical and functional interests, as among national, regional, and local or municipal governments. Each presumably will guard its power against encroachment from others. By virtue of the Sovereign Equality Principle and the delegated powers in the Restricted Purposes Principle, the World Federation would be already so divided. Virtually all potential government activities concerning individuals are reserved to each community, regardless of size. But here also power can gradually shift to the federal government, until it dominates all intergovernmental relations, as has happened in the United States.

Power may also be limited by balancing it within the federal government, as among its legislative, executive, and judicial functions. If powers and functions are properly distributed, each branch will check the possible aggrandizement of the others. However, as the history of these checks and balances systems in the United States attests, one or another branch can dominate, as with the "imperial presidency" of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; and all three branches can grow at the expense of the federating governments (communities) and people. Nonetheless, while not preventing government growth, the checks and balances system has contributed much to restraining it. After all, now over 200 years old, the American federal system is the most durable and still among the most limited in the world. In any case, so far no constitutional principles have been specified to balance power in the World Federation.

Finally, power can be limited by balancing its sources. Even were the branches of government checked by the countervailing power of the others, if all have the same source of power¹² (such as in popular elections--the same overlapping popular majorities), then government expands. Power expands at the center to satisfy the unchecked demands of majorities, the desires of special interests that control swing votes that may decide a majority, or the particular wants of special and single interest groups that are unchecked by the diffuse and general interests of voting majorities.¹³ This growth of government can be restrained by representing different interests; or different social groups (such as the church, farmers, unions, business, and education). Each presumably would guard its interest and prevent excessive demands by others from being met, especially at their expense. Regardless, the Representative Government Principle already directs separate representation for communities and their peoples. This in fact would constitute a representation of different interests (especially since, for communities, government majorities will be composed of many small communities, while for the people government majorities will reflect the interests of the largest communities).

A thorough discussion of these themes and the effect on limiting the Federation of the three Constitutional Principles, should lead to some final principle expressly devoted to a durable limitation of the Federation's powers. This Limited Government Principle might take the following form:

The World Federation shall be a minimum government, with only such delegated, checked and balanced powers as necessary to achieve its specified purposes.

Of course, understandings about the principle's major terms would be developed in the Convention. These should make clear that all powers not "delegated" to the Federation are reserved to the communities and their peoples; and "Checked and balanced powers" means a checks and balances system among the legislature, executive, and judiciary.¹⁴

One understanding in particular should cause much discussion, but in the end must be accepted if the Federation is to protect the Just Principles. This concerns the police powers of the Federation: Will the Federation monopolize force?

If it is to intervene in the largest communities to enforce the right of individuals to leave, then the Federation needs sufficient power to intervene by force, if necessary. If the judgments of Federation courts are to be carried out against a large community or its leaders, again, sufficient force is necessary. The same force is necessary for interposing Federal peace forces between potentially warring communities. Even anarchists, to secure their right to found an anarchical community,¹⁵ must accept that power at the global center is in their own interest. Even totalitarians, who want no outside power competing with their own and especially forcing them to allow free exit to their subjects, must accept the need for such outside power. Otherwise, they may be unable to found a communist or national socialist community; to agitate for or overthrow an exploitive, feudal, or capitalist system (nothing in the principles prohibits revolutions, and the Federation can intervene in a purely domestic one only to assure the exit of dissidents or refugees wishing to leave). After all, a totalitarian mind in the Convention does not know what body or natural environment and social surroundings he will have in the New World. Indeed, the totalitarian's experience with and need for naked, monolithic power would, among all sociopolitical types, make him most sensitive to the need for protection against others in securing his rights and protecting his totalitarian community.

The conclusion is that the Convention's debate is likely to produce a core understanding of what "minimum government" in the Limited Government Principle means, which would be the minimum necessary to achieve the Federation's purposes against any community's opposition. However, this itself could require a huge Federation police and security force, possibly of several million, equipped with expensive and destructive weapons, in order to maintain superiority over the stronger communities and prevent global domination by any potential alliance. And regardless of the Limited Government Principle, the maintenance of large security forces, the bureaucracy involved, the cost to the Federation, and the power such forces would give certain government elites, could transform a limited government into a garrison world state.

To avoid this, most minds should see it in the interest of their own ideology to have an explicit understanding that no community can have police or security forces beyond the needs of domestic law and order. In the abstract, no precise criteria for this can be given, for community needs will differ. No doubt, however, neighboring communities will challenge what they see as an excessive build-up; those in the Federation who are from weak or vulnerable communities would make sure the Federation was ever watchful. Through the Federal Courts, legal precedents governing the size and nature of domestic police forces would develop a framework of rules to guide communities and the Federation. And the Federal legislature likely would pass a few laws on this. Thus, we need not worry about criteria, which will naturally develop, but simply whether the Convention would accept this "disarmament" understanding.

In sum, a number of explicit understandings would guide constitutional interpretation of the Limited Government Principle:

• Powers not delegated to the Federation are reserved to the communities and people.

• Power would be checked and balanced among a legislature, executive, and judiciary.

• The Federation would have sufficient police power to achieve its specified purposes-by force, if necessary.

• No community may develop or maintain more police or security forces than necessary for domestic law and order.

Since the six principles index clusters of ideas, these ideas might be expressed in more or fewer principles, depending on their wording. Moreover, definitions and understandings could be translated into principles as well. Perhaps this is already clear, but I want to be quite sure that the reader is not entangled in a particular wording, a specific term, or even a given principle. In the ideas they reflect, all six principles form a package: they are mutually interdependent in defining a socially just system. Each principle contributes to a sociopolitical totality; each gains in moral significance, reasonableness, and intuitive power from the totality.

The core ideas of this package, which I will call a Just Package, are explicit in the above discussion of each principle. To reiterate, under bargaining conditions assuring practical prescriptivity, moral universality, fairness, impartiality, and rightness, individuals of whatever culture or sociopolitical persuasion would

• want the right to live under the sociopolitical system (community) of their choosing,

• be disposed to grant this right to others in exchange for recognition of their own right,

• require a durable institutional guarantee of this right, and

• demand lasting institutional protection for their use of this right--their community--against outsiders.

Central is the idea that the world's peoples would be deadlocked over the definition and nature of a just society for all, but could resolve this by a higher-order definition of social justice as the right--freedom--of people to seek and realize their own sense of justice. Among the sociocultural and sociopolitical diversity of humanity, the best social justice, the one most common to all, is that of freedom. Not necessarily hedonistic or sensual freedom, or spiritual or intellectual freedom, or economic or political freedom; rather, this is the freedom to join with others to define one's freedom. It is free market of communities. It is a global social field; an exchange society.

We now have the Just Package of ideas, made concrete by the Just and Constitutional Principles. Assuming that the Conveners focus on something like this, after numerous proposals, much debate, and many straw votes, would it gain a consensus? I have argued so far that each principle would. But what about the Package? Would those participants who strongly oppose one or another principle coalesce against the Package to form a significant opposition? Would others oppose the Package?

To answer such questions, recall the bargaining situation. People can threaten a veto in the hope that enough threatened vetos will weaken a consensus and force a compromise in their direction. People can also withdraw from the debate, recognizing that they are a minority, cannot alter the proposal, and therefore prefer to stay on earth. Also note that any consensus among several billion human minds would be like a granite mountain, as far as the power of even hundreds of thousands of minds to move it.

Now, assume a minority (of fanatics or otherwise) wants to withhold approval in order to force a revision of the package. Their immediate problem is that to have effect they have to number many millions. But among such numbers a great diversity is likely and, thus, they run afoul of the same first-order problem of finding a common proposal among them that exists for the whole Convention. It would be easier for members of this minority to accept their guaranteed right to form their own secure communities than to find an alternative package on which the majority would be willing to compromise. Undoubtedly, a minority could agree on some facet of a sociocultural system or sociopolitical type. But for them to push such still would return the debate to first-order proposals for which the only reasonable solution would again be the Just Package.

For example, suppose that all 538 million Moslems in the world¹⁶ threatened to veto the Just Package unless Islam was recognized as the religion of the New World. Other religions certainly would reject this; not even compromise on it, since under the Package all Moslems may form Islamic communities anyway. Because most Moslems now live in a world already divided among different religions, and since the choice given them is to accept an improved status quo (improved in that each Moslem would be guaranteed the freedom to change communities and his particular Islamic community--creed--would be secured) or death, accepting the Package would be clearly preferable to an obstinate veto.

What about those who absolutely insist on the acceptance of their proposal or they will stalemate the Convention? The Convention's rules then come into play. If a consensus is found, then all those voting for the consensual position may be transported to the New World; those who cannot accept the consensus will stay behind.

There is another way of looking at this, however. Under the conditions of the Convention, when a mind does not know its future body or environment but when it is guaranteed the right to seek, found, and be protected in whatever solution is fitted to unknown future circumstances if only it allows others equal right, then to prefer death to giving oneself this flexibility is fanatical. These are the absolute deontologists,¹⁷ so convinced of the truth and rightness of their particular ideas of justice and morality that they could not bear knowing that an "evil" or "unjust" system exists elsewhere; that somewhere people are living "evil" or "unjust" lives. Certainly, numerous fanatics through history have sacrificed themselves to prevent this, even when there is not even a question of others being enslaved (except perhaps by their own passions or idols) or exploited, as with missionaries who would not tolerate the "godless" or "pagan" ways of "savages." But under the conditions of the Convention, or even in the real world (excluding mental defectives),¹⁸ I believe such fanatics are relatively small in number.¹⁹

There is another possible cleavage that could develop over the Package. No provision is made to help the poor, for guaranteed minimum wages, for health or old age support or benefits. There is no help to those who may starve in the New World.²⁰ Yet, the poor and hungry make up the majority of humanity. Would there not be a rich-poor division in the Convention? Would not the poor use their numbers to force out a just principle providing all poor people a minimum income in whatever community is created? Or a constitutional principle establishing global welfare as an obligation of the Federation?

While thinkable, the probability of this is nil. First, poverty is a subjective, not objective condition. While statistics may classify a bottom percentage of the people as "poor" in income, many or most of them do not see themselves as poor; they do not relate being poor to what is discomforting or unhappy about their lives. Second, many who do recognize their poverty believe they deserve it through lack of personal effort, through past sins, or as retribution by God for previous evil lives. Third, many see their poverty as a natural condition. They believe that God made rich and poor, and they happen to be poor. Perhaps in the next life they will be rich. Fourth, many believe it doesn't matter anyway, for poverty is a question not of physical conditions but of the spirit. While wealthy in goods, the rich may be spiritually poor and tormented.

For all these reasons, the poor are not the automatic source of unrest and revolution. To oppose a system or government, the poor must believe that a system or government is responsible for their plight. They must be taught that injustice is being done to them. Righteousness among the poor is created by intellectuals and leaders; it is not spontaneous.²¹ Moreover, the poor and hungry perceive their deprivation through their own perspective and in relation to others. The resulting injustice vector²² of each is integral to the meanings, values and norms of a culture and the social interests and expectations of a society. The poor and hungry, in other words, share the same sociocultural and sociopolitical divisions we discussed in Section 6.2. And the poor and hungry will share the same consensus over the Just Package.

Finally, I should mention the argument Marxists or neo-Marxists might very well use in the Convention. They would claim that the ideational culture and authoritarian and libertarian ideologies are reflections of the feudal and capitalist organization of society--that ideas, philosophy, ethics, and the like are created by a ruling class as a way of justifying exploitation of the masses. While others in the Convention may agree with this analysis, however, its wide acceptance is defeated by the very ideological divisions it claims are false. The Marxist view is one among many and will be no more generally persuasive than liberalism, Catholicism, Islam, fascism, monarchism, Buddhism, and so on. The real question is whether Marxists, desiring a dictatorship of the proletariat, working for world revolution to bring it about, would accept the Package (or something like it).

The answer must be yes, I argue, for all the reasons given throughout this chapter. In review (and also in answer to why any other ideology or "ism" would accept the package), these reasons are:

• the Convention would be deadlocked over first-order solutions, yet some solution must be found if life is to go on;

• the higher-order solution--the Just Principles--would at least allow Marxists, and any other group, to set up their preferred solution;

• the Constitutional Principles would protect the Marxist solution from outside intervention, while also assuring Marxist communities of representation in the Federation;

• no Marxist would know beforehand what body and what community he would be in, thus himself needing a Liberation Principle.

Surely Marxists would be concerned that once their communities are formed the Liberation Principle would allow members to leave, especially before education or reeducation into Marxism. While this would be seen as a potentially serious danger to Marxism, it is a necessary exchange for the right to establish and be guaranteed a communist community.

Consider what the Package means socially and politically. It would set up a free market--a global exchange society--of individuals and communities within which people could establish any community to their liking consistent with the Just Package, which really means consistent with the same rights of others. And we know that among exchange societies interests are diverse and overlapping. Statuses and social roles are mixed, with considerable horizontal and vertical social movement among them. Classes, in my terms,²³ are delineated by and limited to particular organizations or, at most, industries. Elites are pluralistic. The upshot is that vital interests, compared with other societies, are most unlikely to coalesce into an opposing, society-wide cleavage--a class front along which a violent social storm can rage. Still, nonviolent conflict there will be. A continuous hubbub of nonviolent conflict will reflect the perpetual adjusting of diverse individuals and communities. The level of this nonviolent conflict probably will exceed that of authoritarian societies. However, the structure of the global exchange society will create a threshold across which nonviolent conflict generally will not pass.²⁴

There is also another angle from which to evaluate the Just Package and peace. How would the global society it creates compare with the modern international system? The world is now composed of different communities, called nation-states. They compose different global, sociocultural, and sociopolitical divisions, but perhaps half refuse to allow their citizens

to emigrate, as would the Liberation Principle. The United Nations is a global confederation without a monopoly of force. States are dependent on their own resources for security and thus most are armed far beyond the necessities of domestic law and order. Moreover, many states are authoritarian and totalitarian and thus provide necessary structural causes of war.²⁵ This, along with the existence of several other necessary and sufficient causes,²⁶ means that the modern international system--an exchange society with an anarcho-libertarian government--has intense collective violence and wars. But even then this violence--including the world wars--is much less than one would expect, and much less than has occurred in some of its component totalitarian states.²⁷

How would the Just Package improve on the modern international system in promoting global nonviolence? First, while accepting the existence of separate communities and nation-states, the Just Package guarantees the right of people to emigrate from them.

Second, it assures people the right to form new, sovereign, and equal communities.²⁸ This is a generalization and universalization of the current widely accepted belief in the self-determination of national or ethnically homogenous peoples.

Third, although the Just Package maintains the principles of the sovereign equality of communities and equal representation in a world government, it adds that people will be represented also.

Fourth, the Just Package provides the world government with sufficient police and security power to make and maintain peace; ensure the right of people to emigrate; and secure and protect the independence of communities.

Finally, the Just Package establishes universal disarmament²⁹ and provides world government with the power to achieve and maintain this.

For all these reasons the Just Package would considerably improve on the violence restraining characteristics of modern international relations, while reducing or avoiding some that aggravate violence. There would be more mobility between peoples; more ability to establish new communities. The world government would have machinery and power to facilitate peace, especially through courts with teeth,³⁰ backed by a world police force that can enforce global law and order.

Especially important is that the war-making capability of totalitarian and authoritarian communities would be effectively eliminated. These communities surely would exist in the New World. They could suffer coups and revolutions; they could have internal war. But these communities could not arm much beyond domestic needs, and disaffected citizens and dissidents could emigrate en masse. Of course, aggressive and militant elites could foment unrest in other states; they could conspire to secretly build up arms or try to subvert the Federation's security forces. But their overt war-making capability would be eliminated. War is not the result of arms; arms are the result of the conditions for war. Universal disarmament would not eliminate intense international violence and war, but the conjunction of Federation peacemaking and peacekeeping capabilities, world security forces, free emigration of peoples, disarmament, and the violence containing and dissipating conditions of a world exchange society would severely limit collective violence.

However, would the Just Package tend to minimize social violence in the New World? This is really a question of whether we would make any additions or deletions to the Just Package if only maximizing global nonviolence were our aim, without giving any consideration to our social contract model. Since the Just Package already establishes a global social field and exchange society, a nonviolent peace is thereby enhanced beyond that of other major types of global societies. Other improvements are marginal by comparison. These could be made by lessening the power of communities over their members; by guaranteeing global freedom of religion, speech, and opportunity; by recognizing global rights to free and open elections--in short, by creating global human and civil rights.

This would make the global society more of a pure exchange system with spontaneous relations among and within communities and, in effect, with universal limited and libertarian governments. Among the range of possible global exchange societies, this is an ideal for global peace from nonviolence. Diversity, cross-pressures, mobility, and mixed statuses and classes would exist at all levels. This still would not eliminate the possibility of social violence between certain groups or classes (e.g., strike violence), nor the possibility of intense violence--even global civil war--over an issue that might polarize world opinion, such as Federal versus community power.³¹ After all, any representative government could still be influenced by an aroused or dedicated elite or popular majorities wanting to impose global policies against the intensely felt wishes of a militant minority. The American Civil War is a reminder of this. However, in a world of change always requiring adjustment among many vital interests, we can hope to only minimize violence. A global, overarching exchange society of exchange communities with libertarian governments would do so.

But, this would be an ideal solution only for peace; not for social justice. Many people do not want to live in an exchange society. They want authority, a religious community, traditional virtues, equality, economic democracy, and so on. Exchange freedom or classical liberal rights to them would be license for evil or exploitation. "It would make money and competition king and queen!" "It would dehumanize man." Many would want their own mixed or nonexchange communities. And this the Just Package permits.

Will, then, a focus on minimizing global violence alone yield a different socioeconomic system from the exchange society entailed by the Just Package? No, not compared with the major alternatives to an exchange society. But yes, compared with the possible variation in exchange societies.

To further clarify let me ask whether any major alternative just package would tend toward less violence. Alternative just packages would really comprise the different, first-order sociocultural and sociopolitical solutions to the bargaining situation I discussed in Section 6.2. These comprise the alternative types of societies which have been found by theory and empirical analyses to have more violence;³² and in Section 6.2 and Section 7.1 they and their combination have been found unattainable as just solutions. Moreover, the previous paragraphs have indicated that a just solution ideally minimizing violence--a global exchange society of exchange communities--would also be unacceptable to many in the Convention.

All this taken together allows me to conclude that the Just Package delineates a global social structure that tends to minimize social violence consistent with social justice.

"Now, what is your vote on the Just Package?"

Surely we have no way of knowing the precise outcome of such a vote. Because of the logic of the situation and the nature of the Just Principles, however, I argue that a very high percentage should vote yes. Perhaps eighty percent; possibly ninety percent; maybe even more, given the alternative.

Who would vote no? The absolute fanatics, who prefer that all die than anyone live under an "evil" system. Those who believe that "man pollutes the universe and should be eliminated." The emotionally twisted, because of some "wrong" that society has done to them, seeing this as revenge. The zealots, whom "God" has told that "judgment day has come" or that the warp storm is "God's punishment for our sins." The morally perverted and criminal, the type who kill for laughs, who no longer care for life--even a change in the New World and would enjoy this last chance to "screw them all." These and many similar types would vote no.

Who would want to stay on Earth even after voting yes? Many may not bear to leave Earth--their beloved surroundings, possessions, pets, holy shrines, sacred temples, ancestral grounds. Some who follow a changeless social routine of generations, who live in a village of their ancestors and for whom the outer world is circumscribed by a half-day's walk, may prefer death to the unknown New World. How many there would be of such people in the Convention? It is difficult to even guess--perhaps a third? More probably a fifth? Regardless, this number does not matter, for their decision to remain would not constitute an objection to the Just Package.

In sum, I contend that the Just Package would be very widely accepted--across diverse cultures and societies; across ideologies. It thus lies at the center of gravity of humanity's morality and justice.

The Just Package now defines what I mean by a Just Peace.