GRABER, Robert Bates (Truman)
IS A WORLD STATE JUST A MATTER OF TIME? A POPULATION-PRESSURE ALTERNATIVE

Attempts to predict a world state have been inductive, time itself being the only independent variable. A theory that autonomous political units deproliferate in inverse proportion to population density, however, allows deductive predictions. Wide variation, depending on whether the U. N. is considered a state and on whether historical (20th-century) data are taken into account, prompts three sets of predictions based on (1) the theory applied ahistorically; (2) the historical data analyzed atheoretically; and (3) the theory as revised in light of the historical data. The most pessimistic result estimates that a world state would require over a trillion people--not unimaginable, but far more than a fossil-fuel energy base apparently can support. The most optimistic result requires only around ten billion, a number that conventional demographic projections see as reachable within this century. Due to evidence that 20th-century polities proliferated in direct proportion to human numbers, the paper devotes special attention to the possibility that density increase can drive political unification only when conquest warfare is available as a mechanism. If hyper-destructive weaponry and globalized capital, then, have "disabled" conquest warfare, the observed proportionality should persist; should population stabilize near ten billion, this revised theory predicts stabilization near three hundred polities. Considerable autonomy in legislating and enforcing law internally may coexist with little de facto capacity to wage war externally. Conceptual vagueness may leave unclear whether and when a "world state" has emerged.