The United Nations was supposed to be dedicated to the preservation of peace but we can see that the United Nations does not work. The declared intention of the United Nations was "to cut the causes of war at their roots". A glance at history shows that in this respect the U.N. has failed miserably and slaughter and destruction in the defence of capitalist interests has continued. The governments that meet in the United Nations have behind them national capitalist groups which have real and vital conflicts of interest. The conflicts do not disappear. The U.N. may be of use to the major Powers as an instrument to stop the quarrels of the lesser Powers getting out of hand, but that is all. The whole idea of governmental co-operation to maintain peace and prevent war is a delusion in the world of international rivalry that is capitalism. The United Nations (like the League of Nations a quarter of a century earlier) was set up because the politicians dared not face their war-weary peoples without being able to offer them something that would deceive them into thinking that their sacrifices had not been in vain. The United Nations is a capitalist institution useless to the working class to stop war.
However the UN is more than the Security Council and a talking-shop General Assembly. When established there was more than an undertaking to try to settle disputes by peaceful means; it was hoped that “nations could plan together so that everyone would have a fair share of the good things of life.”
Socialists devised the slogan "One World" as a concise description of the society we are striving for. Socialism means that the whole world will operate as a single productive system where goods and services will be produced so that people can use them freely without resorting to buying and selling. A united humanity, sharing a world of common interests, would also share world administration. This entirely different vision of the future to such schemes as the United Nations which, as the name imply, is an attempt to improvise a patchwork from the fragments which capitalism makes of the world. This is the socialist alternative to the way that capitalism divides the planet into rival states and sets people against each other. The world-wide communications network—which capitalism itself has built up and which socialism will develop even further—will be used to ensure that everyone can have an input into the decisions which affect their lives on a global, regional and local basis. Just as on the national scale some of the institutions of the capitalist government machine could be adapted and used as part of the new socialist administration, so on the world scale could some of the institutions of the UN. The United Nations includes useful world bodies such as the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agricultural Organisation and UNESCO. This is the world-wide structure already developed by capitalism which would be taken over and developed for the needs of the world's population. For example, one problem that socialism would have to solve as quickly as possible will be the supply of enough good quality food for every person. This will require co-operation at every social level and the existing FAO, national ministries of agriculture and local departments could be swiftly adapted for the task. This is not to suggest that such a single agency based in New York or Geneva or wherever would be making policy decisions for everyone on the planet. Its function could be to provide information and propose various development strategies so that alternatives could be decided democratically. In the specialized agencies of the UN (and even in the ever-growing of multi-national corporations) the basic framework for a world administration already exists. It only remains for the workers of the world to realise this and to organise to take it over for the benefit of all mankind.
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