[lbo-talk] Nationalism & Internationalism Re: Benny Morris responds

Grant Lee grantlee at iinet.net.au
Tue Jan 27 20:53:46 PST 2004


From: "Yoshie Furuhashi"


> Nationalisms of settler colonialists and anti-colonial nationalisms
> of the colonized are not the same thing and do not occupy the same
> place in leftist politics.

They both serve the interests of particular national/ethnic bourgeoisies and manipulate working class patriotism to achieve their political aims in support of enhanced accumulation.


> Also, it is too simplistic to set up an either/or choice between
> nationalism and global capitalism, especially in that it is the
> latter that begets the former in all its varieties.

I disagree here as well. National capital begat global capital, historically. In fact there is still relatively little capital (i.e. individual firms) which _is_ truly global, except for a scattering of multinationals. Capitalists are generally based solidly in one nation state or another, and --- as we know --- attempt to use these states (and national sentiment) in enhancing accumulation through imperialism.


> What is
> defined as particular and universal depends very much on power
> relations, with cosmopolitans, especially in core states, blind to
> their own particularism (Furedi 1994).

I agree with this point inasmuch as there can be some kind of synthesis. I mean there is a difference between (1) unthinking or unquestioning patriotism/particularism; (2) blind anti-patriotism/anti-particularism and; (3) being aware of patriotism/particularism and working with/around it.


> Nairn argues that without a national state
> apparatus to gain some autonomy in the global economy, industrial
> development means domination.

Industrial development always means domination, usually by a national or comprador bourgeoisie (except in the Soviet-type states, which relied on another form of domination).


> The only way for people to "contest the
> concrete form in whichS'progress' had taken them by the throat" is to
> construct their own national state (Nairn 1977).

Or an "internationalist" state, as in the case of the (pre-Stalinist) Bolsheviks.


> The prediction of
> liberal thinkers on international politics that global commerce would
> lead to global social harmony could not have been more mistaken.

Should we want a capitalist "global social harmony"?


> On
> the contrary, the over-riding power of global capital is seen as
> continually reproducing nationalism and generating rather than
> abating inter-national conflicts.

Driven, in most cases, I would say, by national bourgeoisies which have lost ground to more aggressive and expansionary capitals.


> The key position was restated, that nationalism, "far from
> being an irrational obstacle to development, was for most societies
> the only feasible way into the development race - the only way they
> could compete without being either colonized or annihilated" (Nairn
> 1997).

I think this a non-argument. As I've said before there is no correlation between historical dominance/resistance to imperialism and the later fortunes of a society. In fact, some of the most "colonised" peoples are later the least "annihilated".


> This critique was important as it emphasized that
> cosmopolitan internationalism was - and is - a creed of the centre:

Ah, that eternal and mythical centre which is so hard to find....


> "There is the same crypto-imperialist streak in the proletarian
> internationalist ideology as there was in the liberal and free trade
> dogmas that lent themselves so well to Anglo-Saxon Europe" (Nairn
> 1997). The same could be said, and has been said, of some
> contemporary versions of environmental cosmopolitanism, of feminist
> cosmopolitanism, and of human rights cosmopolitanism.

"Crypto-imperialist" in what sense? That these internationalisms do not respect pre-capitalist hierarchies?

regards,

Grant.



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