ABSTRACT
The roots of universalism, or as it is commonly called, federalism, are ancient and honorable. Universalism was linked to the issue of war and peace by the leading representative of Cynic thought, Antisthenes. The Humanist, Renaissance and Enlightenment theorists vigorously pursued the universalism of ancient political philosophy. In Emery Reves, contemporary universalism has an able, if limited, theorist. His premises are throughout connected to a presentation and defense of the ideal of peace, and more profoundly, of the traditional liberal social values inherited from John Locke, Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. In Reves' opinion, the State is not a sacred calf offering divine protection for its individual member-citizens, but a general enemy to the individual whatever his social status. In a reflective mood, Reves evaluates the shift from individualism to Statism. For according to Reves, the steady development of science, industry and technology destroys the possibility of permanence for the nation-State.
