The nation-state is a relatively new invention. For its time it was a novel idea; taking the invisible lines encompassing common culture, history, language, and often religion, and stenciling in political borders. In the 18th and 19th centuries many nations were incredibly homogenous, and identified with their fellow citizens in not only a political sense, but also by cultural means. But globalization has not left the traditional nation-state untouched. With the growing global economy, the legitimacy and authority, of the nation-state and the governments that control them has been severely weakened.
During the mercantilist age the governments of sovereign nation-states could control their economies and regulate businesses as they saw fit. But not so in today’s globalized world. In Kenichi Ohmae’s article “The End of the Nation State”, he describes how “the modern nation state itself - that artifact of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – has begun to crumble.” The problem for these entities is that, in an economically free and borderless world, their ability to tinker or “twinge” with the market has been drastically hindered, since businesses have the ability to move capitol away from those states. Since these nation-states are such “remarkably inefficient engines of wealth”, governments that are democratically elected in these nations will continue to be ousted until they are willing to submit to a free global market.
What’s more, the ability to attribute products and goods to a certain country has become nearly impossible, considering that Japan has car factories in the U.S., U.S. companies have bases in Europe, and European textiles have factories in Asia. To what nationality do I attribute my automobile, t-shirt, and backpack?
Finally, with today’s freedom of mobility, people are hardly constrained by the borders within which they were born. The open movement of people has not only eroded the political authority of nation-states, but has also weakened the cultural ties people once shared with those of common heritage.
So, having established that the nation-state is in fact on the decline throughout the world, what are the consequences of such a change? Are these transformations good or bad? Well first, the history of the nation-state is by no means a peaceful one. Because these states are based nearly entirely upon common ethnicity, those unfortunate peoples who have lived within ethnic borders while not actually sharing in the national traditions have often been the targets of violence. The idea of ethnic cleansing, master races, and segregation is based upon the idea that, though a person may live within a country, it does not make them the same nationality.
Yet the feeling of community and unity offered by the nation state is unquestionably comforting. To know that you are surrounded by people with whom you can identify is not at all a bad thing. It is when this comfort turns to disdain for those of different “nationality”. The violence enacted against Slavs in Yugoslavia, the Jews in Nazi Germany, and the Kurds in modern day Iraq find their origins in blind nationalism that goes in tandem with a nation state.
What’s important is that, as the nation-state begins to fade, people do not lose their sense of community. It’s an important part of being human, having a place to belong, a home and a so called brotherhood of neighbors. However, this cannot come at the cost of human lives or dignity. In a sense, globalization is offering us the opportunity to draw new community lines, surrounding people who share, if not heritage, but interests and ideas.
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