A country’s flag is a commercial asset, said the proponent of the British Empire, Cecil Rhodes. It represents the economic and political interests of the capitalist class. The ruling class praise love of country in order to beguile the proletariat, so that it should sacrifice itself in defence of the wealth hich the ruling-class has stolen from them. Capitalists are always nationalist, since they must exploit the proletariat of its own nation, but at a certain times of the economic development it must assume a certain international character, in order that the surplus of goods which it has captured from the wage-earners may be sold.
The rising capitalist class of the eighteenth century was only able to overthrow the aristocracy and seize power by proclaiming the brotherhood of nations and by calling on them to make common cause against tyrants; to be a patriot meant for bourgeois revolutionists not to love France, Germany or Italy, but to love the revolution. When the revolution was over they became once again nationalist in order to organise nationally its class oppression and exploitation.
In the age of globalization, the nation state has retreated as the locus of world power. Free trade agreements, supra-national financial institutions, and multinational corporations ensure that capital can float between nations with ease . Labour, on the other hand, remains under the restrictions of border-obsessed states.
The proletariat of a nation, in order to throw off the yoke of the governing class, must be organised nationally and rise nationally, yet it will be unable to attain its final emancipation until they too join together with the proletariats of other capitalist nations. The revolutionary proletariat will neither need to keep its ancient nationalities nor to constitute new ones, because by becoming free it will abolish classes: the world will be its fatherland/motherland.
Abdullah Ocalan, an imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has explained why he no longer supports the creation of an independent Kurdistan:
"When you said nation there absolutely had to be a state! If Kurds were a nation they certainly needed a state! However as social conditions intensified, as I understood that nations themselves were the most meaningless reality, shaped under the influence of capitalism, and as I understood that the nation-state model was an iron cage for societies, I realized that freedom and community were more important concepts. Realizing that to fight for nation states was to fight for capitalism, a big transformation in my political philosophy took place. I realized I had been a victim of capitalist modernity."
The Left state-capitalists and the Right libertarian propertarians both propose in their own ways to re-nationalize capital, (which is a complete impossibility). It is for socialists to argue for the globalizing labor; that is, eliminating borders.
Our goal is a society without classes. In a classless society where man's exploitation of man is abolished, there will not be some kind of oppression of the smaller ethnic groups, but each people group’s free development is prerequisite for all people’s free development. Our political object is universalist: It is for all human beings.
“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” - Communist Manifesto
The rising capitalist class of the eighteenth century was only able to overthrow the aristocracy and seize power by proclaiming the brotherhood of nations and by calling on them to make common cause against tyrants; to be a patriot meant for bourgeois revolutionists not to love France, Germany or Italy, but to love the revolution. When the revolution was over they became once again nationalist in order to organise nationally its class oppression and exploitation.
In the age of globalization, the nation state has retreated as the locus of world power. Free trade agreements, supra-national financial institutions, and multinational corporations ensure that capital can float between nations with ease . Labour, on the other hand, remains under the restrictions of border-obsessed states.
The proletariat of a nation, in order to throw off the yoke of the governing class, must be organised nationally and rise nationally, yet it will be unable to attain its final emancipation until they too join together with the proletariats of other capitalist nations. The revolutionary proletariat will neither need to keep its ancient nationalities nor to constitute new ones, because by becoming free it will abolish classes: the world will be its fatherland/motherland.
Abdullah Ocalan, an imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has explained why he no longer supports the creation of an independent Kurdistan:
"When you said nation there absolutely had to be a state! If Kurds were a nation they certainly needed a state! However as social conditions intensified, as I understood that nations themselves were the most meaningless reality, shaped under the influence of capitalism, and as I understood that the nation-state model was an iron cage for societies, I realized that freedom and community were more important concepts. Realizing that to fight for nation states was to fight for capitalism, a big transformation in my political philosophy took place. I realized I had been a victim of capitalist modernity."
The Left state-capitalists and the Right libertarian propertarians both propose in their own ways to re-nationalize capital, (which is a complete impossibility). It is for socialists to argue for the globalizing labor; that is, eliminating borders.
Our goal is a society without classes. In a classless society where man's exploitation of man is abolished, there will not be some kind of oppression of the smaller ethnic groups, but each people group’s free development is prerequisite for all people’s free development. Our political object is universalist: It is for all human beings.
“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” - Communist Manifesto
No comments:
Post a Comment