Stella
A One-World Nation Platform
One of the problems with modern politics, it’s been said, is that politicians tend to think small, shying away from grand ideas and rarely challenging the status quo. In Stella: A One-World Nation Platform, James Crippa outlines a theoretical system of government, dubbed “Stella,” that aims big and makes no apologies. Crippa’s book is nothing less than a blueprint for a new worldwide political and economic order.
Some of the presented ideas are radical, to say the least. Traditional national borders are discarded in favor of a global system of tri-city states. The World Cup trophy figures prominently into the plan, as the gold standard monetary system critical to Stella is based, per citizen, on the five kilos of gold in the trophy. The fifty tri-city states are further subdivided into three hundred “teams” which compete in sixteen sports (one wonders about the fate of sports not included in the list), and Crippa connects an academic practice to each, “so to aid in the work ahead.” Thus, soccer is linked with geometry, while American football is paired with music.
Crippa has valid credentials for a world economic theorist: he has lived in Rome, Paris, and London, and holds an MBA from Pepperdine University, plus an undergraduate degree in International Business. With Stella, Crippa has attempted to combine the respective strengths of capitalism and socialism into an economic theory he dubs “Consumerism.” He writes: “Stella is a planned economy; therefore, the average yearly salary can be whatever you want it to be and given demographics, I assure you that the numbers are outstanding.” Tantalizing words, indeed.
The biggest drawback of the text is that in thirty-two pages, there is little in the way of how to manage the transition to the proposed one-world economy. Why would wealthier countries willingly sacrifice their advantages in order to level the playing field? While a noble ideal, it doesn’t take a historian to see that human nature might run counter to it. Crippa states that Stella, as a concept for government, is uncodified, meaning anyone can develop additions, amendments, and improvements. But one has to wonder, what does Crippa think should happen if private individuals don’t want to sell their twenty-four carat gold to the new one-world government, a necessary precursor to implementing the Stella system as described? Even more problematic, what if countries don’t agree to surrender their sovereignty? Without the answers to such questions, even a system as deliberately conceived as Stella becomes more like science fiction or the ground rules for an economic board game.
Economics, as we’ve seen in recent years, is not an exact science or a static equation to solve; it is a complex, ongoing process. Still, as an exercise in theory, Stella makes for a fascinating and thought-provoking read for anyone who wonders how we might do it all better.
Reviewed by
Peter Dabbene
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
