Re: the Nation State

[wpc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Paul Cockshott)]

Roderick Hay states:
"I don't understand this "right of nations to self-determination". What
is
a nation but a bourgeois reification. The workers have no nation."

Scheetz
-------
And, tellingly, no one grasped the core of the question, "bourgeois
reification."  It is typical of this list (especially the mothers)
that they are incapable of conceptualizing but in bourgeois categories.
The "nation state" is a bourgeois thing; mother Burford was asserting
it in this way; and this is precisely the form a US (or EC)
dominated outcome would assume.  A worker's state would engender
a radically different state polity, of course.
So for workers to support a "right of
national self-determination" for Balkan irredentist
( or Quebecois, or even Iraquois)  is logically absurd.

Paul C
------
This point about bourgeois reification is very important to grasp
to avoid falling into nationalist deviations.

Nationalism is a form of state supporting ideology specific to
capitalist society. Nationalism is an idea. Its function is to
persuade people to be loyal to a state or to a government.
Nationalism is the idea that makes people who live
in a state think of themselves as citizens of that state.

French nationalism makes people who live in the French state
think that they are French.  The function of French nationalism
is therefore to make people who live there loyal to the
French state. The function of British nationalism is to
make people loyal to the British government. People
who are loyal to a government do what the government tells them.

To win people's support the state uses all sorts of symbols
and myths. These are called national symbols or national
tradition. For instance a state will have its own cloth
design. This is called a national flag. On ritual occasions
people will wave these pieces of cloth in the air or tie them onto
poles or buildings. In some states, America for instance,
people look at these cloths and then touch their
foreheads with their hands. They call this saluting the flag.
Sometimes on such occasions, they will sing a special
song which says how great and good their nation is.
Whenever they hear this song people are supposed to stand up straight.


An example of a national myth is the legend of Joan of Arc.
She was a poor peasant girl who is said to have heard the
voice of god telling her take up arms and drive the English
out of France. She was burned at the stake by the English
for her pains. This makes her a national martyr.

Governments need nationalism to make people obey them.
They use nationalism to make people think that they are
not just obeying a particular group of men - the government.
It tries to persuade them that they are doing something
more important. This important thing is called the person's
'duty' to the nation.



Duty has to be made out to be a very, very important
thing because it often turns out to be dangerous or
unpleasant. In the early years of this
century the government decided that it was our
grandfathers duty to go and kill people who came
from Germany. This involved putting on brown
clothes which were called the national uniform.
Next our grandfathers were told that it was their
duty to obey certain men from the upper classes
called officers. Next these officers told them that
it was their duty to walk in front of machine guns
which men in grey uniforms were going to aim at
them. Most of them did as they were told and got shot.

Afterwards their bodies were lined up in neat rows
and white stones were put on top of them. Their
bodies were then given a new name. They
were called 'our glorious dead'.

The nationalist idea became common in last
two hundred years. It went along with the
development of capitalism. In feudal times
people were less nationalistic. Instead of singing
anthems and saluting flags, they swore allegiance
to a particular person. This person was called a sovereign. People
promised to obey him and fight for him.
In less orderly places people swore to obey local
clan chiefs or various types of lords.


The reason that nationalism has become common
since the start of capitalism is that the
capitalist classes in different parts of the world wanted
to protect their home market. To do this
they needed to set up capitalist governments.
These governments would then put up customs barriers that
would protect them  from foreign competition and pass
various other laws to help the development of industry.
These governments would be made
up of business men and other professional men such as lawyers.

Kings used to claim that they must be obeyed because
they were acting as god's representative on earth.
In other words they claimed a divine right to rule.
In modern times this idea became less and less plausible.
If people would no longer believe the myth that the king was god's
representative, they were even less likely to believe
that a government made up of bankers and industrialists
had been sent by god. This is why the
nationalist idea became necessary.
People were to be  taught that obedience to the government
was their duty to the nation. By the use of songs
and symbols and ceremonies, the nation was made to
seem some supernatural entity, just as god had been in the past.

This is why from a socialist standpoint nationalism is - always -
an illusion. There are no good and bad nationalism, it is as
De leon called it, the falsest of all false paths.

In this it is like religion, it is false, but lots of people
believe in it and one can not reliably make them dis-believe it by
oppression. Oppression of a religion or a nationalist ideology
by another religion or nationalism only reinforces peoples
sense of identity with it. It was for this reason and this
alone that Lenin defended the right of nations to self
determination - because any attempt to deny it merely reinforced
nationalist ideology.


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