IV Readings on the Nation-State
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A. The Role of the Nation-State in the Culture of Capitalism The nation-state is the political pillar of the culture of capitalism. Virtually everyone in the world considers herself or himself a member of one nation-state or another, in spite of the fact that few nation-states are more than fifty years old. The question addressed in the readings in this section are, how and why did the nation-state come to assume such importance in the culture of capitalism, and, what specifically is the relationship between the nation-state and the capitalist?
Reading 1. States? Sovereignty? The Dilemmas of Capitalists in an Age of Transition
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/iwsovty.htmThis is not an easy reading to begin this section, but this keynote address by Immanuel Wallerstein at a conference on "State and Sovereignty in the World Economy" provides a remarkably comprehensive description of the role of the nation-state in the culture of capitalism. It also complements nicely the discussion of the nation-state in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. The views expressed by Wallerstein are not shared by all social scientists and historians, but they are persuasive and provocative. In this address he focuses on two key questions about the origin, nature and role of the nation-state: first, in what ways are capitalists dependent on the nation-state for their accumulation of wealth. and, second, since the nation-state operates primarily in the service of capitalists, how does it maintain its sovereignty, that is its control, over everyone else? The nation-state, Wallerstein argues, serves the needs of capitalists in a number of ways. For example, it guarantees property rights and protects capital from theft, confiscation, and excessive taxation. It also protects capitalists from a "free market," that is one that allows for the easy entrance of competitors. It also subsidizes the capitalist by, among other things, assuming part of the cost of production (e.g. building and maintaining communication systems, education systems, judiciary systems, etc.), and protecting capitalists from paying for damages they do to the property of others (damages to the environment, to people's health, etc.) But why, asks Wallerstein, when capitalists receive most of the benefits of the actions of nation-states, do these states maintain their power and legitimacy? Part of the answer lies with the ideology of "liberalism," whose history Wallerstein describes. But, as you will see, maintaining sovereignty in an era of globalization is no easy thing; in fact, says Wallerstein, the legitimacy of nation-states are presently being questioned as never before. Furthermore, he says, "The sovereignty of states--their inward and outward sovereignty within the framework of an interstate system--is a fundamental pillar of the capitalist world economy. If it fails, or seriously declines, capitalism is untenable as a system."
Reading 2. Nations and Nationalism: A Review
http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/reviews/nations-and-nationalism/A brief review of Ernest Gellner's book, Nations and Nationalism. He contrasts the needs of agrarian societies (which he calls "Agraria") with those of industrial societies, and concludes that the modern state developed to meet the needs of industrial society. Gellner proposes that the nation-state exists primarily because of the need of industrial societies for economic integration and cultural homogeneity; furthermore, he says, the medium through which this integration and homogenization is accomplished is through education. As Gellner said, instead of using a monopoly on force to accomplish integration, the modern state uses its monopoly on education.
Reading 3. From Miracle to Crash
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n08/ande02_.htmlIn this article, Benedict Anderson explains the political and economic forces that were behind the rapid and dramatic economic rise of Southeast Asian countries in the 1970s and 80s, and their subsequent collapses in 1997. This is another fairly lengthy article, but it is valuable for a number of reasons. First, the article is a superb case study of the interplay between economics and politics, the capitalist and the nation-state, in the modern world. Second, it describes in some depth the role of ethnic groups (in this case the Chinese) in nation-states. Third, the article provides a particularly good summary of the economic and political development in Indonesia, one that complements the discussion in Chapter Three of Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. Finally, it provides a sometimes chilling description of how powerful nation-states can use that power to control the economic, political, and social affairs of weaker nation-states.
Reading 4. The Chile Coup: The U.S. Hand
http://www.consortiumnews.com/1990s/consor33.htmlOne of the functions of the nation-state in the culture of capitalism is to guarantee the assets of capitalists, particularly their rights to private property. However, what happens when that property is held in other countries? If the nation-state is powerful enough, it can use its resources and/or military to intervene. The United States in the last half-century has intervened to help overthrow democratically elected governments in Iran, Guatemala, and Chile among others when those governments threatened the overseas investments of American or multinational concerns. The case of Chile is relevant today because of the October 1998 arrest in England of Augusto Pinochet , the general who assumed power after the American sponsored overthrow of Salvador Allende. This article by Peter Kornbluh that appeared in The Consortium was based on recently released government documents, and details the process through which a powerful capitalist nation-state can intervene in the workings of a less powerful state when it believes that the best interests of its capitalists are not being served.
B. The Relationship Between Ethnic Groups and the Nation-State The major defining characteristic of nation-states is a shared language and culture. In fact, one of the major tasks of any nation-state is to at least convince its citizens that they share a common culture. The problem is that few nation-states meet that criteria. The question is, what is the consequence of the fact that nation-states are not culturally homogenous, and what actions can be taken by these states to address this situation.
Reading 5. Death by Government (a selection)
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel/DBG.CHAP1.HTMThis is the first chapter of Rudolph Rummel's book, Death by Government. In this book, which is one of a series he has done on the same topic, Rummel documents the number of citizens that have been killed by their own governments. Rummel's basic thesis is that the more totalitarian the government, the more likely they are to torture and murder. Democratic governments, he argues, do kill, but nowhere on the scale of authoritarian or totalitarian states. Yet, as he makes clear, nation-states, with their alleged monopoly on the use of force, tend to be by far the greatest source of murder and mayhem. For example, review his statistics on the number of citizens killed by the major megamurderers of the 20th Century.
Reading 6. The Wannasee Protocol
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/...This is perhaps the most horrifying document of the Jewish Holocaust. It is on the Internet at the Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust, a collection of primary documents that include excerpts from the writings of Hitler and Himmler, Nazi decrees against the Jews, Nazi descriptions of the concentration camps and the gassing of prisoners, and the opening address at the Nuremberg Trials. The Wannasee protocol describes the steps to be taken to eliminate Jews. It is one of the primary documents of the Nazi's Final Solution.
Reading 7. About Lynching
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm
We tend to associate terrorism with small groups of people who use violence to achive their aims. But there is also state terrorism where the state uses violence to control portions of the population, or allows extra-state groups to use violence with no fear of being prosecuted. Lynching in the United States provides a good example of such violence. Black Americans were the major victims of lynching, as these brief articles describe. Virtually no one was ever prosecuted for participating in a lynching, and participants and perpetrators even had their photographs taken at lynchings and made into postcards. To get the feeling of the mood at a lyching, read the lyrics to Strange Fruit, popularized by singer Billie Holiday. Photographs of lynching victims follow the main reading.
Exercise 1. Present Global Conflicts
http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/cds/countries/index.htmlThis map at the Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity (INCORE) details most (but not all) of the current intra-state conflicts in the world. The existence of these conflicts tends to confirm Rudolph Rummel's point that most deadly quarrels are between nation-states and their own citizens. Each of the specified conflicts is a link that will take you to additional resources on the conflict. Simply browse through the sites, and see if you can detect some features that all or most of the conflicts have in common.
C. The Future of the Nation-State There is some thought that the future of the nation-state is insecure. Some point to the increase in migration in the world, others to the rise of the transnational corporations, yet others to the increasing importance of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in delivering services to people. The following readings each address that idea, although each concludes, that while the nation-state may change, its importance to the culture of capitalism is too great for it to disappear.
Reading 8. Maps Myths and Migrants
http://www.newint.org/issue305/keynote.htmlGlobalization has dissolved national boundaries as more and more people migrate in search of employment. As Anouk Ride points out in this article from New Internationalist, almost everyone has to sell something to survive, and often the only thing they have to sell is their labor. But as boundaries dissolve, borders, as Richard Kearney has explained, have been reinforced. That is as more and more people migrate from poor countries to rich countries in search of work, governments in rich countries have been urged by their citizens to strengthen borders to prevent immigration. To some, immigrants pose a threat to the economy, to the social fabric of the country, even, some argue, to the environment. But migrants, as Ride explains, contribute far more to national economies than they receive, a fact explainable, in part, because they are willing to work for far less than citizens.
Reading 9. War and Peace
http://www.guardian.co.uk/saturday_review/story/0,3605,655478,00.htmlNation-states claim to have a monopoly on the use of armed force, a monopoly that they use with disturbing frequency. In this article, distinguished historian Eric Hobsbawm examines the history of war in the 20th century and tries to project what sort of wars will be fought in the 21st century.
Reading 10. Bullets and Borders
http://www.newint.org/issue277/keynote.htmlWhy, asks Nikki van der Gaag in this article from New Internationalist, when the nation-state is supposed to be on its last legs, are people still willing to die for their country? In this article he examines how and why nations are, in Benedict Anderson's phrase, "imagined communities," and how increased nationalism is a consequence of economic globalization. It is also, he says, a consequence of the failure of nation-states to provide adequately for the bulk of its citizenry.
http://www.forusa.org/fellowship/winter07/catherinelutz.htmlCatherine Lutz documents the spread of U.S. militarism in which over a quarter of a million troops are stationed in some 737 bases spread around 130 countries. She examines the impacts of these facilities in the countries in which they are situated and explores also the meaning of this unprecedented military expansion and it is stimulating protest.
