Borsodi's Peace Plan

Mildred Loomis

[A pamphlet published by the School of Living, York, Pennsylvania; date not provided]

Borsodi's dismay turned to alarm as he watched the spread of World War II. In the spring of 1940, Germany attacked Denmark and Norway, invaded Belgium and Luxembourg. On June 22, France surrendered to Germany, and Italy invaded British Somaliland and swept into Greece. Hungary, Roumania and Bulgaria joined the Axis and their forces invaded Greece, Yugoslavia and Russia. The Axis attempted to take over the Middle East to cut off Britain from oil sources.

"The horrible insanity of war itself," Borsodi would1 mutter... "the terrible human misery and waste! The monumental ignorance - the sheer irrationality of the world situation!" He dreaded what he foresaw, the involvement of the United States in the maelstrom.

U.S. citizens were 85% anti-war and through 1940 kept out of the holocaust. But England desperately needed help, and Prime Minister Churchill set himself to get it from the United States. U.S. citizens must be aroused -- a blow from the Pacific would do it. William Henry Chamberlain's America's Second Crusade (p163-I77) describes the Churchillian strategy, begun during :he Atlantic Charter meeting August 1941, between Churchill and President Roosevelt. The two government leads secretly laid plans to create a war spirit in U.S. citizens.

Japan had been at war with China since 1937. The U.S. would put pressure there. Most American sympathy i/as with China, but the U.S. sold oil, iron and other war materials to Japan. When in the summer of 1941, Japan made further conquests in French IndoChina, President Roosevelt stopped U.S. sale of oil to Japan, stopped imports from her and "froze" Japan's assets in the U.S. Japanese officials proposed to Roosevelt a Pacific conference to draw plans to match the Atlantic Charter. It would concede to certain U.S. demands and then the Japanese government could say, "We got what we wanted; we can draw our troops out of China and call off the war."

Roosevelt's rejection of this proposal put Japan in a bind. Now they could not possibly win the war in China, To be defeated by China, a secondary power, would be a disgrace, and many Japanese leaders would be forced a commit harakiri. But if they went to war with the United States and were defeated, it would be no such disgrace.

Japanese Prime Minister Konoye and Ambassador Nomura pleaded with Secretary of State Hull to accept their plans. Only in that way could they prevent a Japanese extremist group precipitating actual war. Our officials were obdurate and the Japanese war department began their move to attack.

This much was known to U.S. officials because American sources had intercepted Japanese communications and had broken the Japanese code. U.S. officials knew the time but not the place of the attack. They could have calculated the place, which had to be either the Philippines or Hawaii. Since it would be darkness at the time in the Philippines they should have known that it would be Hawaii.

The Japanese brilliantly maneuvered their attack on Hawaii. Instead of approaching from the obvious route - the west, they sent their flotilla to the north from where my moved on Hawaii. Although the U.S. knew the hour of the attack they made no use of this information. Commanders Little and Short at Hawaii were not alerted. Consequently, the attack at 7 o'clock on the morning of December 7, 1941 was a complete surprise to the defenders, who following the American practice, we sleeping on Sunday morning.

When the attack ended two hours later, five American battleships had been sunk and more than 5,000 American sailors and officers killed. Three other ships were damaged and scores of destroyers and target layers were crippled. Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany on December 11.

BORSODI'S ANALYSIS OF THE CAUSE AND CURE

Borsodi's concern about the war and U.S. participation in it led him to turn from problems of family an community organization to problems of global reconstruction. He saw that certain principles applied at a three levels, but structuring global organization deserve his special and careful rethinking. "Why is world conflinct so continuous?" he asked, "and why does it so often erupt in war, nation against nation?"

This led Borsodi to concentrate on two other questions: What is central to world discord? and Why does it result in open and armed conflict? The first question had to do with principle, the second with organization and practice. Of principles, based on economic justice, Borsodi was confident. He needed more time to thin through organizing them on a world scale.

"Proper organization of families and communities come first," he said. "As we proceed to larger group: we can go in either of two directions -- the political: into ward, county, state, nation and world. Or, to more natural groupings: individual, family, community and world."

"But 'society' is an abstraction," Borsodi observed "not a specific definable, recognizable group of persons to which an individual relates. 'Society' has no rights or obligations, no real functions to perform for our basic organism, the individual. We must substitute more natural real group between the community and the world. He recognized that the natural administrative unit is a geographic region, an area of land whose topegraphy makes it a unified system -- a river basin, a natural watershed, etc. Such regions are better links between communities and the globe. Geographic regions replace nations, he decided.

As Ralph Borsodi realized the functional unity of geographic regions, the tragic absurdity of the very concept of nation became obvious and with it the irrationality of teaching devotion to 'nationalism'.

There's nothing but dumb, slavish acceptance of political organization, he said, "that puts Switzerland and Russia in the same class, i.e., 'nation,' along with tiny Monaco's few hundred square miles."

A nation has complete and final jurisdiction over its citizens. This must be changed. People could assign specific tasks common to a geographic area -- a region -- and still reserve basic functions to communities and families. Regions could do this by setting up regional Authorities, governing bodies with specified and limited functions, such as the administration of ports, harbors, watersheds -- the Port Authority of New York City, for instance. Authorities with concurrent jurisdictions would eliminate nations!

Ralph Borsodi was aware of the World Federalists and Atlantic Unionists, in 1940, Clarence Streit wrote Union Now, a book proposing that the democracies form a federal union which, by other nations joining, might grow -- as the United States had grown -- until it became world government. The book became a best seller and was widely discussed. A national organization, later called Federal Union, Inc., was formed to further the proposal, out of which still later developed a group known as World Federalists which promoted the idea of creating a world government by reform of the United Nations.

Borsodi granted that the goal of a federation of self-governing nations was a step out of world chaos and world war - so long as both the concept and practice of nation are retained. He granted that the federation of sovereign states in America which became the United States has eliminated -- with the exception of the Civil War -- open and armed conflict among the states. He agreed that a federation of nations, each submitting national sovereignty to a world federation, would be an improvement. He particularly approved bringing individuals rather than states or nations to account for their actions, in courts of law.

"But," he said, "a Global Authority would be even better -- far better -- than Federations of Nations." This was Borsodi's unique organizational proposal! Not a confederation of nations. Eliminate nations. Let families and communities reclaim their basic functions; and distribute necessary administrative or "policing" functions to decentralized and regional groups. Reserve and give to a Global Authority only those few functions required by an organization of global proportions.

PRINCIPLES OF WORLD PEACE

What principles should undergird a Global Authority?

First, said Borsodi, a rational, just use of the earth. An agreed-on ethical method of partitioning the earth is basic to any new organization of lasting effect. Principle and practice must be joined. "At bottom," he maintained, "world peace rests on furnishing equitable access to the land and other natural resources to every individual on the earth. Secondly, it rests in protecting and enforcing such allotment."

What types of natural resources should be allotted and protected by a World Authority? "Those types which cannot easily or rationally be dealt with by local communities and regions," he said.

Local communities can and should allot surface sites to their members - for farms, homesteads, residences and business. Regional authorities can administer regional systems-watersheds, rivers, ports and harbors. A global authority is needed for the high seas, air and mineral deposits. A global Authority should have charge of traffic on seas; over food resources in the oceans, of mineral resources under them; over air traffic and use of air waves; over mineral ores, metals and fuel under land and water. "No natural resource," Borsodi insisted, "calls for assignment to users by a national government."

A Global Authority would apply to world affairs concurrent jurisdiction, such as has proven so successful in such federal unions as Australia, Canada, Mexico, the United States, Switzerland and others. Concurrent jurisdiction means the overlapping of agencies geographically, and separating them by function. Several agencies wield authority in a given territory, but each is restricted to specific tasks, such as custom guards, a school's truant officers, penal authority parole officers, port authorities' port policemen, military police, forest rangers, fish and game wardens, fire marshals. Each has limited police and protective authority.

In all cases, action is brought against individual offenders. Only thus can justice be achieved. The authors of the United States constitution saw clearly that this is essential if war is to be avoided. Oliver Ellsworth said, "This Constitution does not attempt to coerce sovereign bodies. No coercion is applicable to such bodies but of armed force. If we attempt to execute the laws of the Union by sending an armed force against a delinquent state, we would involve the innocent and guilty in the same calamity."

Concurrent jurisdiction has succeeded in the world to the extent that it has resulted in separating the innocent from the guilty individual through legal procedures for the administration of justice.

When sovereignty resides in the citizen, who assign to each authority its sphere of activity and influence, competition for control of or in the use of protective or penal action, is avoided. When such competition does develop, it is settled in courts through legal procedures.

"A big task remains," Borsodi asserted: "To teach human beings to extend the principle of limited Authority to the crucial mineral resources of the earth."

Minerals are either metals (iron, copper, tin, etc.); non-metals (nitrates, salt, sulphur, etc.); or, fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas, etc.). To get rid of armed conflict between groups, it is necessary to universally recognize that an individual, corporation or nation occupying the surface area over such mineral deposits, has, by this territorial accident, no private title to them. Mineral resources, regardless of their location, really belong to mankind as a whole. When this logic is recognized and implemented throughout the world, the internecine rivalry of any powers to possess and control such resources will end. When the policing and patrolling of such resources is given to a Global Authority, where it normally belongs, then will the "state wither away!"

If the economic rent of the mineral and oil resources of the earth were collected by a Global Authority, instead of by land owners or governments, there would be neither private nor public appropriation of unearned income. Then these great gifts of nature to all mankind, instead of being manipulated to create speculators and millionaires, would be administered for the benefit of everybody in the world.

This royalty would constitute an independent revenue adequate to enable the Global Authority to administer its tasks: assigning the land and natural resources on an equitable basis; collecting the royalties; patrolling and policing the property rights involved; checking violations and maintaining courts before which those accused of violations could be tried. Nature has created an ideal source of revenue adequate to cover all the expenses of such a Global Authority.

If free trade were universally practiced there would be no tariffs to prevent people of "have not" countries from obtaining minerals at the same price as the "have" regions.

If, in addition, free migration of people were allowed, the basic conditions for freedom to all persons would be achieved.

Borsodi incorporated these three requisites into hi; plan for a Global Authority. On December 25, 1942 the School of Living issued in pamphlet form his Plan for World Peace by Way of a World Patrol Force with the following three provisions:

I - A World Military Patrol Force

The immediate, universal transfer by all nations o\ their armies, armaments and bases - military, naval and aerial - to a World Military Patrol Force, the member ship to be recruited by voluntary enlistment from among all people and nations, the officers passing suitable civil examination.

The true function of policemen is to patrol, and ty patrolling, to prevent crime. This Military Force would not be empowered to apprehend a criminal after the crime of war had been committed by a nation. Its duties would be to patrol all the land and cities, sea and air; to report to the World Court any individual, group or corporation which manufactured armaments. It would take steps such as entering and encircling (thereby preventing entry of any person) to any harbor, manufacturing plan or establishment which made any war materials.

By restraint, boycott and seizure, the Patrol Fore would thus prevent the production of armament. Without armament, there could be no war. Impartiality would be secured by each unit of the Patrol Force having membership from all parts of the world, such members having renounced their allegiance to their former country Having pledged allegiance to the World Authority, they would be granted such seal, flag, anthem and uniform a would be symbolic of all humanity and world peace.

II. - Free Trade, Travel and Communication, and Freedom from Imperialism

The immediate abolition of all customs, tariffs ant trade regulations and the establishment of universal fret trade between the people of all nations; the ending of all restrictions upon free travel across national or political boundaries (health quarantine expected).

The ending of all restrictions upon free communication between individuals in groups or meetings anywhere.

The renunciation by all governments of imperialist which requires armies in order to maintain colonies, an do not, therefore, rule with the consent of the governed.