Anti-Nationalism 5/5

Socialists are utterly opposed to manifestations of nationalism. In fact, we find disturbing the revival of nationalism around the world.  A “nation” is a false community, and a dangerous illusion because of its divisive nature. Socialists recognise that workers have no country. We are not nationalists, in fact, we are implacably opposed to nationalism in whatever form it rears its ugly head. One of the last things the world needs at the moment is more states, with their own armed forces and divisive nationalist ideologies. Without the ideology of nationalism, capitalist states would be unstable since, being based on minority class rule, they need a minimum allegiance from those they rule over. Nationalism serves to achieve this by teaching the ruled to be loyal to "their" so-called "nation-state".

Nationalism is based on the illusion that all people who live in a particular geographical area have a common interest, against people in other areas. Hence, the supposed need for a separate state and a separate government to defend this separate interest. This flies in the face of the facts. All over the world, in all geographical areas, the population is divided into two basic classes, those who own the productive resources and those who don’t and have to work for those who do, and whose interests are antagonistic. The non-owning class have a common interest, not with the owning class who live in the same area, but with people like themselves wherever they live. Nationalists are spreading a divisive poison amongst people who socialists say should unite to establish a frontier-free world community, based on the world’s resources becoming the common heritage of all humanity, as the only framework within which the social problems which workers wherever they live face today. This is why Socialists and Nationalists are implacably opposed to each other. We are working in opposite directions. Us to unite workers. Them to divide them. We want people to change the economic and social basis of society and establish socialism in place of capitalism.

The problems of the working class of the working class of the world originate in the class stratification of capitalist society. Given capitalism, these problems are inevitable; they cannot be "planned" out of the system. They do not arise out of the "evil" intentions, nor the blundering or stupidity of governments, "home" or "foreign", no more than they could be planned, prayed or fought away by brave, sincere or wise men. They were the facts of capitalism and would continue to exist for as long as the working class, the only class with an economic interest in bringing about a real change, accepted that system. Members of the working class should realise that nationalism is the tool of capitalism. The working class have no country—they have the choice of enduring the miseries of capitalism within the confines of national frontiers or enjoying freedom in a world socialism. Socialist education demands that besides advocating the establishment of Socialism, the obstacles that stand in its path must be pointed out, in order that the workers can march along the road to political power.

As socialists, we refuse to pander to petty nationalism but work to promote a World without frontiers where the Earth’s resources have become the common heritage of all. The idea of "the nation" functions as supreme good, beyond the physical and mechanical functionings of the state, to which any cause may appeal. It is a fantasy which can be used to cover up for problems and contradictions in the practice of the state's daily life. Its function is to legitimise both the state and class rule and sustain a large quantity of support, through workers who identify with the ideas of nationhood and believe themselves to be the same as, and have the same interests as, their masters. An influential and well-funded nostalgia industry which has long been used to persuade workers that there is something great about being the nation's subject. Nationalism is the ideology which seeks to justify the capitalist division of the world into separate “nation-states”, each competing to gain a place in the sun for its ruling class and each with killing machines at its disposal. We utterly reject this view of the way humanity should organise itself. As socialists, we re-affirm that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race. They should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and to establish a World Cooperative Commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members - citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states.