I started this thread to see what other people feel is the purpose of a nation, and if they believe it is good/bad, and also if they see this unit coming to an end (and if so, what will rise in it's place.
In another thread
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...9&page=1&pp=40 roachboy said the following, which I found interesting and wish to respond to in it's own thread.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by roachboy
pan: ok, let me explain what i was saying. you got it wrong.
zen is basically correct: i was talking about the ideolopgy of nationalism in general. as for teh states, i live here too, friend, and so i am obviously concerned about what these things mean for the place in which i live.
if you actually think about how globalizing capitalism is developing, the functions that the nation-state had traditionally fulfilled are being transferred to the transnational level--think about the e.u. in political terms, and the confusion/problems that are attending it. if ytou think about economic power, environmnetal regulation,e tc etc, the processes are underway that will at one point make the nation-state--and the whole ideology of nationalism--a thing of the past.
obviously things are not there yet--but as i understand nationalism to be little more than the ideological expression of the nation-state, it would follow that as the former gives way to another formation the ideology becomes unnecessary.
|
If it's true that the nation-state becomes a thing of the past, I don't see it being because everyone decided to live in some communist utopia (and I mean no insult by this, so don't take it as one. I personally could think of little that would be better than living in a true communist utopia, but I don't see that as viable until the notion that one person can be better than another is eliminated.). The processes are being accelerated by businesses, who are finding profit margins greater by finding countries where laws are more lax in what they allow. There are some multilateral movements being made that are beneficial, but again unless all abide by them they only put those who follow them at a disadvantage (unless they are constructed so that certain places automatically benefit more in relation to others). The Kyoto protocals come to mind here.
Quote:
|
and what has nationalism given us anyway? what i see in it is largely a history of massacres, from the colonial period through two world wars, through the present forms of militarized delerium. of course it also has provided flags to wave and illusions of unity to defend--but these seem to me little more than flip sides of the same thing.
|
Aggressive nationalism is something that is generally harmful. But nationalism can also give unity and defense against outside forces, and help mobilize people more efficiently. It's people's tendency to group with others they identify as similar in some way, and if they see an advantage they will often exploit it. You can see this even in places like schools, where there are found cliques that all identify the same. And I see nationalism as helping global nerds not get constantly wedgied by global jocks.
I will say that at best, nationalism as a byproduct of the nation is at best a wash.
Quote:
|
it also was the framework within which complex systems of democratic accountability came to take shape--the pressure points that these patterns of democratic accountability relied upon have been transferring away from the nation-state level for 30 years now...production is no longer organized around nation-states--ownership is no longer bound by nation-states--patterns of economic co-ordination operate at the transnational level--the institutions that will come to regulate transnational capital flows are starting to take shape. increasingly, the institutions that had been amenable to pressure for organized groups of citizens in the context of the nation-state are disappearing, morphing onto a different level of organization.
|
I don't see the different level of organization forming. I see businesses consolidating their power and resources more and more in places where they don't face the difficulties that they have in many western nations.
And in a way, it has always been this way, it's just with the "shrinking" of the globe these effects are being magnified. The great trading companies of Europe (the Dutch East India company comes immediately to mind) were doing much the same thing before, only currency and resources weren't anywhere near as fluid as they are now, so the effects weren't as easily seen.
Quote:
|
i think the entire politics of the bush administration is shaped by these considerations--they react absolutely against it, because they know that if this process were to go forward on a multilateral, transnational basis, that their reactionary ideology would sooner rather than later find itself with nothing to talk about. so they took a huge gamble--that gamble was iraq--it was aimed against the un as a signifier for the entire process of transnational capitalism--not as such, but as something that in its logic rendered nationalism obsolete. the idea was to alter the situation by forcing the american military hegemon on top of these institutions--that way nationalism could collapse everywhere else, but in the states folk could pretend things were otherwise. this was not about you, this was not about me, this was not about the well-being of anyone--this was an act oriented around political self-preservation.
|
The problem I see with this view is that transnational capitalism is in the best interests of a very influencial, powerful group of Republican supporters-namely, big business. I don't see the UN as any sort of viable alternate, or even serious threat. Daimler-Chrysler holds more power than the UN does, unless the UN is supported by some powerful nation or bloc of nations.
If the UN were to truly work as the next level of organization, it would work similar to Congress, or some other parlimentary body. The UN has this setup, but where it fails is that the individual members have no real identity as a greater unit-they are there representing their countries. There might be some of this in Congress with reps trying to gain advantages for their states, but it's nowhere to the extent of the UN. And also congressmen often look at issues from a national perspective, where it's rare (if ever) that the UN members have looked at any issue from a Earth perspective (and actually enforced the decision). And at this time, the nation seems the largest unit that people are able to come together for any sort of greater good.
Quote:
|
and the bush administration fucked it up---they lost. the consequence of this fuck up will play out for a long time. but they lost.
|
I don't see it as a big loss, if a loss at all. But that's irrelevant to my points here, imo. I was accused of selectively quoting another poster, so instead of deleting the statement or combining it with another section, I figured it would be best to separate it.
Quote:
|
what do you think a nation is anyway? something eternal that you conflate with other types of collective identity formation? well, it isnt. do you think a nation is a thing, endowed with an essence, something outside of history? then you are fooling yourself. the modern nation-state is a product of the late 18th-19th centuries--it has a history, it served and serves a particular function, it is a social model coterminous with an older style capitalism. as the newer forms of capitalist organization take shape, the ideology will change eventually as well. ideology is a functional entity--it adapts people to the socio-economic situation in which they operate while at the same time providing them with a way of thinking they are doing something else. within that, it is the basis for arguments floated by the dominant order to legitimate itself.
|
I think here's a good place to say what I hope i've been building to, and how I see nations as necessary. You see nations as a support/correlary to older captialist organization. I see it as the only viable check on unbridled capitalism, as the nation is the largest unit with enough power to counteract large capitalist units (big business). If not for the "nation", I think it's quite possible at this point that I would be typing this on my IBM computer, using my AT&T connection, before leaving to drive my GM car fueled by Standard oil to the local Walmart where I could get a nice selection of Conagra produce and Kraft premade foodstuffs. Just like everyone else in my vicinity of say, 500 miles or so. That's if the omnicorps were nice enough to allow me to make enough to afford all that (and obviously also assuming I wasn't a member of said omnicorps).
Do nations always work in this function? Obviously not. I would say that especially in the past, they facilitated the growth of megacorps at the expense of parts of the world where they didn't hold power. And this partly goes on today. But the very fact that corporations have ot shop around to find profitable labor pools shows that the nation is functioning somewhat in this capacity.
I will add more later, but I'd like to see what response I get to this first.