ok--i am a bit pressed for time today so will only respond with bulletpoint like things.
a. the outcome of the processes that folk group together as globalization will not lead to anything approaching socialism (a stand-in for the problematic notion of "communist utopia on the one hand and a confusing terminology blur on the other) because there simply is at this point no coherent left opposition at the level of politics/ideology. revolution do not simply happen--they are shaped by ideology/politics/a revolutionary line--at this point, the mobilized radical forces out there are mostly from the extreme/neofascist right. this for historical reasons, mostly to do with the collapse of marxism as a mobilizing tool (as over against the slower devolution of nationalist ideologies in a radical form). in a way this is intuitive (1989 anyone?)....
b. the question of nationalism as a pattern for identity formation and nationalism as mobilizer are different--they lean on each other but are not idenitical to each other for all that. one argument is that movements like the american conservatives in their contemporary form are reactions against the erosion of the nation as a stable frame for elaborating a sense of connectedness to wider communities--this a function of the creeping sense that, for example, there is little the nation-state can or will do to deal with the implications of the transformation in how production is organized.
c. i do not see the contemporary right as being a direct instrument of corporate power. it is much more a curious populist movement that espouses an ideology that in certain areas is of a piece with corporate interests. in most areas, though, i think it is as much geared around the interests of conservative politicians themselves.
in general, one place where the two converge is across the process of privatization--which you can also see as a process of depoliticization. the main effect of privatizing sectors is not higher efficiency but the removal of that sector from political conflict because it is a withdrawing of the state. the underlying argument here is that what the state does, what it intervenes in, is necessarily political. in a situation of heightened uncertainty, the state can reduce its risk by privatization. and globalizing capitalism is nothing if not a generator of heightened uncertainty for the state.
the last point you make is, i think, one of the central points of conflict within this whole scenario. maybe it would make sense ot have a look through the website of one of the more interesting (yet peculiar) anti-globalization movements--attac
www.attac.fr
there is an english language version.
there should still be a number of position papers generated by attac that explain the problems facing not only the nation-state but even more political mobilizations that try to address the dynamics of globalizing capitalism from within nation-states....the other problem they (and mnay others) have run into is that if you cannot simply organize at the national level to pressure changes in policy/direction, and find yourself trying to mobilize against these bigger processes, who do you go after? how do you do that? this is the most basic problem facing these movements in general at the moment.
at this point, i have to stop.
one thing i am not sure of: the analytic backdrop for most of what i am talking about comes from books, often really fat books. i dont know about whether it makes sense to talk directly about them in this context. maybe refer to them? because a problem may end up being that we are simply not working from the same frame of reference, and that modulating a discussion might require modulating the frame. in which case, the thread could involve generation of reading lists or something. what would you think of reading stuff along the way?