All the nations in the world are connected, for better or for worse, at the very least by their mutual inhabitance of this one planet. The actions of the people of one nation can have a profound positive or negative effect on the wellbeing of another nation. As an obvious example a nation that poisons its watershed also poisons the watershed of any other nations that may be down-river, and can poison the ocean where that river lets out, harming all the other nations that rely on that water system for food and water. Conversely, a nation that contains or cures a highly contagious disease spares its neighbors the trouble of having to face that disease. As technology and globalization continue to advance the actions of each nation have a more profound impact on all other nations of the world. The nations of the world can no longer afford to be isolationist, or rather, being isolationist is simply impossible. Global warming is the most well-known example of this. The volume of greenhouse gases each nation produces is the world's business because it is the whole world that may suffer as a consequence. Each nation that ignores the threat of global warming places an even greater burden on the shoulders of those nations that are trying to do something about it. There must be a government that stands above all other governments, which concerns itself with the wellbeing of the Earth. And if we some day colonize other planets it would be appropriate for each of those planets to have their own global governments, for the needs of one planet may not be the same as the needs of another.
The primary role of the global government should be to care for the wellbeing of the planet as a whole. Laws are not the way to do this and the global government should have no power to make or enforce laws. Instead the global government should have two powers at its disposal for the purpose of ensuring global wellbeing. The first power is taxation, which should be used exclusively as a means of discouraging activities that are demonstrably internationally harmful. No other means should exist or be used to serve this purpose and taxation should be used for no other purpose. Examples of internationally harmful activities may include the release of greenhouse gases, poisoning of international watersheds, polluting international air streams, and so forth. The second power is subsidy, which should be used exclusively as a means of encouraging activities that are demonstrably internationally beneficial. No other means should exist or be used to serve this purpose and subsidies should be used for no other purpose. Examples of internationally beneficial activities include curing contagious diseases, birth control programs, cleaning international air or waters that have been polluted, planting or maintaining forests, programs for the preservation of wildlife and particularly wildlife integral to global economics and farming like rehabilitating fish populations, and so forth. Subsidies for activities that have results that are difficult to quantify (like education programs, non-preventative health care, or economic incentives) should be avoided and left to other government or private entities. These taxes should be used exclusively for funding subsidies and subsidies should be exclusively funded by these taxes. A surplus or deficit in one year should be met with an increase or decrease in subsidies the following year. The global government should neither be in debt nor ever have more than a years worth of money in savings.
As a means of ensuring that the taxes and subsidies for global wellbeing are applied appropriately, the government should have some economic oversight. This can be both achieved and paid for by levying some kind of sales tax. The sales tax should only be of a sufficient level to pay for the collecting of the taxes, the auditing of suspicious companies or individuals, or other similar economic oversight activities. Company or individual expenses should be kept confidential so long as the taxes are paid appropriately and no laws have been broken. The sales tax should be used exclusively for this purpose and should be the only means of funding these activities.
Governments may also require oversight in order to ensure that they too are suffering fair taxes and subsidies. Government oversight should function in a similar way as Economic Oversight except via a flat percentage tax on the expenses of each national government. Government expenses should be kept confidential so long as the taxes are paid appropriately and no laws have been broken. The money collected in this manner should also be used to pay for the basic operating costs of the global government.
The Global Government may be organized similar to the way the UN is currently organized. Voting power should be based on population by primary citizenship. New taxes or subsidies should be difficult to enact, perhaps requiring a 2/3 majority or higher. Removing a tax or subsidy should be easier, perhaps requiring only a majority vote after some period of time after the new tax or subsidy is enacted. Adjusting existing taxes (raising or lowering them) may require only a majority vote. Subsidies should be managed by distributing a percentage of available funds to each subsidy, adjusting the percentages may require a majority vote. The global government may benefit from using the proxy voting system I have described in another article, but this is not essential. An alternative system may be that each delegate proposes the appropriate tax rate for each tax and the mean (based on number of votes) rate is enacted. A similar system may also be used for subsidies, though modified because the percentages have to add up to 100%. Enacting and repealing taxes or subsidies should still require a vote.
Every entity that claims sovereignty over any piece of land on the planet is required to join the global government. Each government that joins makes a solemn oath to uphold the powers of the global government. Should a government refuse to submit to the taxes they will be tried in court, the court may determine that the government has been fairly or unfairly taxed according to the current taxes, or may find that the government is unable to pay the taxes, some kind of bankruptcy system should be in place for the possibility. If appropriate the court may then demand payment. If the nation refuses, then all other nations are bound by their oath to seize the assets of that nation and deliver them to the global government, using force if necessary. If a universal government is in place, it is not obligated to provide any protection to the nation whose assets are being seized, though it may protect the other nations from any aggressive act by the guilty nation. The universal government should not take an active part in the act however, and should not take an active roll in the acquisition of the guilty party's funds, only a defensive one on behalf of the other nations.
It is important that the global government have no military force of its own, while it may have non-combative peace keepers any act of violence by these peace keepers should be considered a crime not an act of war.