Class not nation

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

Capitalism is constructed on national lines: nation states, national languages, national education systems and national laws. We have national parliaments and therefore national political parties, national industries and therefore national unions. We are taught about our shared “national” culture and encouraged to embrace “national identity”. We support “our” country, “our” military, “our” national sporting teams. National boundaries are the product of the rise of capitalism, with its need to develop national markets and industry. Each nation was unified with a capital city, a central government authority, a single currency, a single border, and a single army.The problem with nationalism, however, is that it has the corrosive effect of undermining class solidarity and helping to bind us more closely to our own ruling class. Marx and Engels recognised that the working class is “itself national”. But they urged that “working men have no country” and must settle their affairs with their own capitalists. Our fight must be with our own rulers; and to the extent that we wrap ourselves in the same flag as them, we can never be free. Workers have an interest in adopting this spirit, rather than succumbing to nationalist arguments. Nationalism has always been deeply reactionary, racist and imperialist, and there is nothing about it that we should seek to defend.

Capitalism is based on competition – between capitalists in pursuit of profits, between workers as we compete for jobs, university places and so on, and between the states seeking to extend the reach and power of the “national” capitalist class. Workers around the world today more than ever share similar conditions of life: tempos of work, patterns of consumption, forms of recreation and so on, increasingly cut across the old national barriers. Class struggles between workers and bosses in one country often propel and combine with struggles in other countries. if we want to overcome the real divisions between rich and poor, we also need to break down the invented divisions between peoples across the globe. We need to raise Marx and Engels’ call to arms: “Workers of all countries unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”

  Both Scottish and British forms of nationalism are reactionary but the overt anti-immigrant xenophobia stoked by UKIP makes the latter doubly so. With most people worse off than they were in terms of jobs, real wages, and access to health and education services, and yet still accepting a capitalist framework, they will understandably focus their anger on scapegoats and vulnerable targets. Asians and other migrants end up being blamed for health waiting lists, deteriorating education services, lack of housing and so on. Immigration controls are racist, anti-working class measures. They are designed to keep workers divided along national lines and to identify with their own capitalists against foreigners. Immigration controls, by discriminating over who can and cannot work and live in this country, legitimise discrimination against migrants once they are here. Marx used to argue that until British workers learned to solidarise with Irish republicans against the British ruling class, they would never develop the political consciousness necessary to take on that ruling class. British workers would remain tied to their own rulers’ apron-strings on the key political questions. For exactly the same reasons, open borders is a key demand to be fought for by people serious about social change. Workers and leftists who side with nationalism against people from other countries are basically lining up with their own exploiters; they will never be able to mount a serious challenge to the ruling class until they break with them on the question of nationalism and all the issues. In defending immigrants we can make no distinction between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ immigrants. The ‘illegals’ are, indeed, the people in the worst position and most desperately in need of support. There should be no restrictions on entry and work in this country, and full rights should be accorded to all, whether born here or migrant. Defending migrants means declaring war on all immigration controls and on nationalism which has been as much a staple part of the diet of the left-wing as it has of the traditional right in this country. Workers across the world have many things in common. We need to organise together, to help each other .

Nationalism is a ruse to lure workers into supporting the rights of business to make profits at their expense. The ruling class is prepared to allow a certain level of democracy, such as the right to vote and some political freedoms, as long as their right to make profits is not restricted in any way. Universal suffrage has never been a threat to profit-making because big corporations control all the key sectors of the economy, including the media, and they fund the political parties so that they are conducive to policies that make ever larger profits. The increasing nationalism and the rise of right-wing racist groups play on people’s fears about the lack of jobs, affordable housing and diminishing access to public services. They also reflect peoples feelings of powerlessness and anger at the rising cost of living. Nationalism cannot resolve the root causes of the economic and social problems faced by working class people. The capitalist system operates to enrich a tiny, wealthy elite by exploiting ordinary people and creating divisions using nationalism and racism. The idea that native workers are being ‘dispossessed’ by greedy, queue-jumping, newcomers is false, but powerful. By creating an enemy out of tmigrants, and a hero out of the perpetrators - the bosses, people aim their fear and anger over diminishing standards of living at the wrong target.

 The growth of Scottish nationalism has seen more of the Left falling in behind it. The Socialist Party, however, exposes their reformist arguments that independence will better the lives of workers and takes an implacably hostile stance toward the SNP, using every opportunity to expose its cynical tactics to win workers’ votes. Scottish nationalism means its workers are turning away from class unity and joint struggle with their brothers and sisters south of the border, and strengthening reformist illusions that hope lies in a new constitution and a sovereign parliament, one with “their own” SNP politicians and “their own” bosses.

As socialists, we recognise that we have more common interest with the ordinary people of other countries than with our own ruling class. The alternative to nationalism is class solidarity.