Too many workers have embraced the cul-de-sac of nationalism. Nobody is born as a patriot. When capitalism fails to deliver, when despondency and shattered hopes arise from the failed promises and expectations that litter the political landscape, is it little wonder that workers fall for the nationalists and the quick fix they offer? The real evil in this world is caused by the rival gangs of ruling class hoodlums who control all media outlets, and the ignorance of the masses who support them and the divisiveness of class, race, nationalism and religion. These are the factors preventing us from working together to repair our environmentally damaged planet. Nationalism is the political form of property consciousness. It asserts that a group of people cannot exist as such unless defined by their ownership of a particular quarter of the world – the relations between “peoples” are actually the relations between patches of land, rather than the people upon them. It was the predominate form of ideology for the rising capitalist class in the 19th century, a way of understanding the world in terms of conflicting properties, and is now a tool for conning the working class into believing that there is some communal interest between themselves and their capitalist masters in where the boundaries of their state are drawn. The nation and nationalism are not an eternal and essential characteristic of human beings as some would have it, but are solely a tool for pursuing the further interests of sections of the master class at given points in history. Nationalism is not their interest but their rulers'; submission is taught, not conceived. That its workers should be patriotic is vital to each national ruling class and this, fertilised by official lies, is exploited by all governments.
Workers have no country. Nationalism is based on the lie that workers have their own country. Workers who do not own or control Britain have no obligation to the bosses who do own and control it. Our sole interest is in co-operating with our fellow workers across the world who similarly have no country. Why should we die defending what is not ours and which we will never benefit from? On the contrary, our object is to obtain what is not now the possession of our class - the earth and its natural and industrial resources. The only war which needs to concern us is the class war between the parasites who possess and the workers who produce over the ownership and control of the Earth's resources. Nationalist conflicts has raged for years. What, in all honesty, have any of the victors gained? What is the “independence” they yearn after if it means being trapped within borders, prisons - inside of the bigger prison of capitalism? 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 boundaries determined purely by historical accident. Nationalism conceals the real nature of capitalism, turns worker against worker and serves to impede working- class solidarity. The world's working class have no reason to be antagonistic to other workers but must unite against their common class enemy: the world's capitalist class. It underlines yet again the urgent need to work for a World without nations and nationalism, bosses and workers.
The view that all who live in the same country have a common interest against all those who live in other states is part of a political ideology that seeks to mobilise the producing class to line up behind the owning class in its contest with the owning classes of other countries. But the interest of the wage and salary working class in all countries is to reject all nationalism, to reject in fact the very idea of “foreigner”, and to recognise that they have a common interest with people in other countries in the same economic situation of being obliged to sell their mental and physical energies in order to get a living. That interest lies in working together to establish a world-wide society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use, not for profit. We advocate a World without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders, states or governments or armies. A World devoid of money or wages, exchange, buying or selling. The working class is international: so is its cause. Our cry is "Workers of all countries unite!"
The inexorable process of globalisation has increasingly made redundant the question of "national sovereignty". Many of the most important decisions are now made, not by politicians, but in the boardrooms of these multinationals. 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. Yet regional nationalists imagine they can buck the trend without even being against capitalism. The Socialist Party opposes all nationalism. Workers have no country. None to live for. None to die for. Workers should refuse to fight, for every drop of working-class blood spilt in battles within capitalism is wasted.
The facts of working-class life are poverty, insecurity, unemployment, homelessness, slums, as well as disease.These miseries did not originate in "foreign" rule any more than they can be assuaged or eradicated by "home" rule. The French, English, German or Russian worker under his "own" government, lived with these problems in the same way as the Irish worker or the Indian worker, living under a "foreign" government. They did not arise out of the "evil" intentions, nor the blundering or stupidity of governments, "home" or "foreign". Workers have nothing to gain from the redrawing of the boundaries, but regional entrepreneurs and bureaucrats certainly do have a chance of making good if only they can persuade the electorate to back them. Capitalism knows no boundaries, money has no accent. 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.
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 socialist world.
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