302 deep freedomInternal peace and union have now largely ceased to be the central
problem of politics, save in an exceptional condition. Th e exception oc-
curs when civic life is poisoned by the form of ethnic or national con-
fl ict that has become characteristic of our time: the rage of an empty
will to collective diff erence, made all the more violent and intransigent
by the fading of actual diff erence.
Th e problem that was central for those thinkers nevertheless persists
in a special and more terrible form: a contradiction in the po liti cal de-
velopment of humanity. Humanity can develop its powers only by de-
veloping them in diff erent directions. Not only is there is no incontest-
able social regime, there is also no self- evidently justifi ed form of a free
society (a fact explored by the second of the four principles). Th e exis-
tence of separate states, or of separate blocs of states, is of im mense
value to humanity; the state represents the po liti cal shield of the forma-
tion for a distinct form of life. No world government, designed as a
federation, would ever guarantee the divergence of forms of life as fully
as can the existence of separate states.
Th ese states, however, are armed. Th eir sovereign power to enable
radical divergence is just the reverse side of their ability to wage war.
Th e combination of radical diff erence in the forms of life— including
the forms of a free society— with universal peace— the suppression of
war— is therefore a fundamental requirement for the moral develop-
ment of humanity. Th is combination requires a world po liti cal and eco-
nomic order that does not make the peaceful engagement of a state in
the global regime depend on the ac cep tance of any institutional for-
mula, even any blueprint for the or ga ni za tion of a po liti cal democracy,
a market economy, or a free civil society.
If economic openness and po liti cal security are made to depend on
the submission of nation- states to such a formula, then the state, if it can-
not or will not opt for isolation, will have to choose between surrender
and war. Th e global po liti cal and economic order must be established on
the basis of a principle of institutional minimalism: it must allow for the
maximum of engagement with other states but exact only the minimum
of restraint on the institutional arrangements of national society. Institu-
tional minimalism makes it possible to reconcile divergence with peace.
As internal confl ict and union cease to be the central problems in
po liti cal life and the threatened contradiction between peace and di-