Globoscepticism of classical liberals

Abstract

In the past few years, after 50 years on academic margins the debate on a world government (or world state) is renewed. Traditionally it is followed by aversion toward world state, nowdays called globoscepticism. The paper focuses on classical liberal thinkers of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their views on a world state, that have been rooted in early federal peace proposals and analyses of modern political thinkers (Rousseau, Bentham, Cobden, Mill, Smith, Mill). The author points out on Kant?s ?federalism of free states?, to show it did not imply support for world state but improved international law. Also, it is confirmed that globoskepticism of the classical British liberals, or their distrust of a world organization, arises from general liberal distrust of a big state political organization. The classical liberal attitude has been abandoned by new liberal internationalists at the beginning of the twentieth century, but classical liberal doctrine continues to have both an academic influence and practical outcomes.