Nation or Class?
Home is where the heart is we are told, somewhere with the feel of belonging, security, comfort, fond childhood memories, neighbourly bonds, familiar habits and customs, all the things that frame a person into who they are and what they stand for.
In a broader context home may be perceived as a wider geographical area, a homeland standing for something more than a family’s local community. Our planet, the home shared in common by all of the human species, has artificially-created entities called “counties”.
A country is a geographical, physical place; large, small, populous or sparse, barren or lush, coastal or land-locked frozen, arid or temperate, all requiring to be nurtured. Physically it can offer minerals and crops depending on its situation and in proportion to the care given it.
The shared identity of the inhabitants of the nation will be as has developed over generations – history, customs, religion, community relations, occupations, way of thinking – something impossible to enforce as empire builders and nation creators has been reluctant to accept. A shared identity with universal, mutual respect and acceptance cannot be enforced. It is surely the shared identity, that elusive quality, love of one’s birthplace, hopes, dreams, aspirations, that people feel when they talk of “their country”, the tangible and intangible connections.
Confusion of the country with its institutions brings the problems of nationalism and patriotism. Nationalism manifests itself like sophisticated tribalism, with pride, tradition, attitudes of superiority, patriotism and flag-draped buildings. Ill-considered rhetoric needs to be confronted, contested at any and every opportunity. Self-replicating, regurgitated mantras built on lies, fears and hatred need overturning without hesitation. Chop up society into more and more pieces, more separate entities, create more divisions, more fears and suspicions and when the globe is totally crisscrossed with walls and fences shall we allow ourselves to become so paranoid, afraid and suspicious of each other that we finally close the gates to our minds?
The challenge is to dismantle the barriers which deafen, blindfold, shackle and dehumanise us. The last thing the world needs at the moment is more states, with their divisive nationalist ideologies.
To promote the notion that the place of our birth (“our” country) transcends or neutralises our class status or gives us a common cause with a class that deprives and demeans us, that imposes either mere want or grave poverty on our lives and the lives of our families, is to be cruelly deceived by the political machinations of capitalism.
We are all part of one globalised exploited mass with more in common with each other than with our supposed fellow-countrymen bosses. Workers do not share a common interest with our masters.
The inexorable process of globalisation has increasingly made redundant the question of “national sovereignty”. Yet many nationalists imagine they can buck the trend without even being against capitalism. The growth of multinational corporations, some with a turnover exceeding the GDP of most states, has dramatically transformed the role of government as the locus of economic decision-making. Many of the most important decisions are now made, not by politicians, but in the boardrooms of these multinationals.
Likewise, the proliferation of trading links between different states has effectively blurred the lines of demarcation between nominally separate national economies. It would be more realistic now to speak of there being a single global economy. Even so, many locally-based businesses are indirectly tied into this economy as subcontractors to multinationals. Not only that, the ever-deepening nexus of international linkages means they cannot escape recessionary perturbations emanating from elsewhere when these impact the local economy. At the same time, the limited leeway of governments to ameliorate such localised effects has been correspondingly reduced.
Nationalists are spreading a divisive poison amongst people who socialists say should unite to establish a world community, free of frontiers, based on the world’s resources becoming the common heritage of all humanity.
This is why the World Socialist Movement and nationalists are implacably opposed to each other. We are working in opposite directions. We to unite workers. Them to divide workers. Nationalism has served to divide workers into different nation-states not only literally but ideologically. It is probably fair to say that a majority of workers—to some degree or another—align themselves to their domestic ruling class. The ideology of nationalism means that workers and capitalists living in a particular geographical area must have a common interest.
However, socialists argue that society can be broken into two classes, capitalists and workers.
Despite differences in language or cultural barriers, this does not alter the fact that those of us who are working class are all part of one global exploited mass with more in common with each other than with our “native” bosses. Capitalists and workers do not share a common identity nor do they share any interests in common. Every country in the world is class-divided: a minority of rich owners and the rest of us. We have no interests in common with them and anything which encourages the illusion that all the people form a national community with a common interest can only serve their interests. They need us to believe this because their rule and privileges depend on our acceptance.
The appeal to workers to a fake “cultural” identity and fake “national” unity is utterly poisonous to the real interests of the working class. The bonds which bind workers with the worker, irrespective of nationality, are those of class solidarity. For as long as workers are deceived into viewing the world from a “national” perspective, they will fail to understand their condition in capitalism. The working class is deluded by nationalism. Such beliefs actively encourage people to co-operate with their “national” exploiters operating within borders determined purely by historical accident. Nationalism conceals the real nature of capitalism, turns worker against worker and serves to impede working-class solidarity.
The problem of nationalism cannot be wished away. To do away with it will mean eliminating the present system that fosters it. This system ensures that a minority owns and controls the means with which wealth is produced and distributed whilst the vast majority who actually does the production owns nothing. The resources and wealth of the world must be owned and controlled by all humanity. Under such an arrangement, no one will care who goes where or who belongs where. We will recognise ourselves, not as British, French, or any of the other labels our rulers impose on us, but as members of the human race, citizens of the world, Earth-people. Then nationalism will have been well and truly buried.
