ABSTRACT

After a brief discussion of some necessary conditions for an international order concerned with development, a distinction is drawn, following Boulding, between the exchange system, the threat system, and the integrative system. It pays one country to put up protectionist barriers, whether others do so or not; it pays one country to build up arms, whether others do so or not; it pays one country to pollute the global air and oceans, whether others do so or not. These typical prisoner’s dilemma situations call for global reforms. There is a lag between technological advance that has unified the globe and the institution of the nation state. Suggestions are made as to how to overcome this lag, when the world no longer has a dominant poker that provides the global public goods and avoids the global public bads.