How to Remap the World

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  03.15.10 | 2:03 PM ET

Parag Khanna believes eliminating arbitrary borders and redrawing the world map in the next ten years is a “moral, economic and strategic imperative.” His guiding star? The European Union.

Leaders seeking to respond to the global economic and underemployment crises should take a lesson from the world’s most successful instance of a subordination of arbitrary borders: the European Union. The E.U. is the world’s most peaceful multinational zone and its largest economic bloc, combining 27 countries, 450 million people and a $20 trillion GDP. The solution to the hundreds of lines that scar our political geography is to physically build the lines that connect people across them. If we spend just 10% of what we do on fighting over and defending borders on transcending them, the next decade—and the decades beyond—will be better than the last.

The success of the E.U. benefits travelers, too. World Hum contributor Eric Lucas explains.



3 Comments for How to Remap the World

Subir 03.15.10 | 8:28 PM ET

I’ve always wanted to live in a world without boundaries. Overcoming power, ego and nationalism is what’s required. And these are very, very hard to overcome.

austin homes 03.16.10 | 11:32 AM ET

Interesting perspective.

daniel 03.16.10 | 1:24 PM ET

Seems like silly nonsense to me. I think we will see more economic unions with ease of movement like the EU in the future, but I remain very skeptical of political unions that see countries lose sovereignty such is the case in the EU. The union has a legitimacy problem with Parliament voters; it’s not see as a democratic ‘addition’ to their home countries, but more as a huge bureaucratic mess. Americans complain about Washington, Europeans now have their equivalent in Brussels.

Khanna’s ideas may be nice ones, but they seem rooted more in idealistic fiction than any in realistic view of the world we actually ,live in.

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