Exit through the gift shop

Much like the ads that portrayed the UN as a vibrant centre of the world, works that predicted or called for an international governing body frequently idealised such an institution as capable of saving the world from all ills.

I.O. Evans’ The World of To-Morrow, published in the 1930s, hypothesised that a ‘World League of Peace’ could solve the problems of rampant consumerism, and that reform of international capital markets could solve poverty and hunger, and end war:

Each nation is producing much more than its people can buy [and] ... because of this rivalry for diminishing markets and not because of national hatreds ... there is danger of war. The plain remedy is to alter our money system... in this way, money reform would not merely banish poverty and hunger, overcome disease, abolish crime, and encourage art and science and sport, it would also free us from the danger of war ... it would usher in an age of plenty, leisure, and peace.

This call to reject consumerism is at stark odds with the quotidian mass-produced UN souvenirs you can buy, like keychains, stress balls, and commemorative plates.