Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg recently expressed the common view that “A little mystic nationalism is a good and healthy thing because it provides the emotional sinew that helps us hold onto our patriotism.” Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry expounds on this defense of nationalism in more detail here. My own view of nationalism is far more negative than theirs. Indeed, I believe that nationalism is second only to communism as the greatest evil of modern politics. There are many different meanings of nationalism. Here, I refer to loyalty to one’s own nation-state based on ties of language, culture, or ethnicity, which I think is roughly what Goldberg and Gobry are referring to as well.
I. Nationalism as a Cause of Mass Murder and Repression.
One big problem with nationalism is that it is a leading cause of mass murder. Fascism and Nazism were, of course, extreme forms of nationalism and the mass murders Nazi and fascist regimes committed were justified on the grounds that they were necessary to advance the interests of racially or ethnically defined peoples. Obviously, most nationalist governments do not commit mass murder on that scale. This is one reason why nationalism is not quite as pernicious as socialism Nearly all full-blown socialist regimes that have lasted for any length of time have engaged in mass murder; “only” a substantial minority of nationalist regimes have done the same.
But many non-mass murdering nationalist regimes still use nationalism as a justification for protectionism, discrimination against minority groups, suppression of dissent, and the like. Nor are these abuses simply the result of misinterpretations of nationalism by unscrupulous rulers. To the contrary, if you genuinely believe that we have special obligations to members of your ethnic or national group that sometimes trump universal principles, consistency requires that you be willing to sacrifice the rights of other groups to benefit your own, at least sometimes. This is particularly so, if you believe as many nationalists do, that international politics and economics is often a zero-sum game between different nations and ethnic groups. This kind of zero-sum thinking was, in fact, at the heart of Nazi and Fascist ideology (see here and here); given its nationalistic and zero-sum premises, the Nazi/Fascist program of conquest actually made a certain amount of sense. In theory, one can be nationalistic without also endorsing a zero-sum game view of the world; but, empirically, the two tend to be highly correlated.
II. Some Other Dangers of Nationalism.
Nationalism sometimes makes xenophobes even of generally tolerant liberals. For example, Senator Charles Schumer recently denounced the NBA for buying uniforms manufactured in Thailand. Schumer would rather see poor Thai workers (who are far worse off than even the poorest American workers) lose their jobs than violate the supposed principle that an “American sport” should buy American. Only nationalistic prejudice can explain such reasoning. Certainly, Schumer would never think of denouncing the New York Knicks for buying uniforms manufactured in Texas. If he did, he would become an instant laughingstock. Yet protectionists on both the left and the right make claims similar to Schumer’s all the time.
Finally, nationalism often leads people to reject good ideas merely because of their foreign origin, a flaw effectively denounced by F.A. Hayek:
The growth of ideas is an international process, and only those who fully take part in the discussion will be able to exercise a significant influence. It is no real argument to say that an idea is un-American, or un-German, nor is a mistaken or vicious ideal better for having been conceived by one of our compatriots.
III. Do We Need Nationalism to Promote Good Causes?
Sometimes, of course, nationalistic prejudices can be enlisted in a good cause. For example, Polish nationalists opposed Soviet-imposed communist rule in their country. But this simply shows that people can sometimes support good causes for bad reasons. Communism in Poland was wrong because it created repression, poverty, and mass murder, not because it was established by ethnic Russians rather than ethnic Poles. By contrast, US-imposed governments in Germany, Italy, Japan, Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere turned out to be much better than those previously produced by indigenous nationalists in those countries. Nor is it the case that nationalism is the only force that can motivate people to sacrifice for a just cause. Many of the most prominent Eastern European dissidents — people like Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov — were primarily motivated by universal principles, and were often critical of nationalism. Here in the United States, brave people risked their lives to abolish slavery and Jim Crow, even though neither was a nationalist cause (indeed, both causes were explicitly universalist in their rejection of the supposed moral importance of race and ethnicity).
The same response applies to Gobry’s argument that we need nationalism to prevent our liberties from being taken away by a “globalist glob” of rule by international elites. One can indeed oppose world government on nationalistic grounds. But the much more compelling argument against it is that it would create a dangerous concentration of power. For similar reasons, I can oppose domestic centralization of power in Washington without feeling any “mystical” or nationalistic loyalty to the state of Virginia.
I am not so naive as to think that we can do away with nationalism any time soon. But we should do what we can to diminish its influence. Contrary to conventional wisdom, nationalism is not an inevitable natural human instinct. Very few people were nationalistic until various European governments started indoctrinating their populations in nationalist ideology in the 19th century. Prior to that time, few objected to the existence of multinational polities such as the Holy Roman Empire (at least on nationalistic grounds) or believed that any important moral obligations could be based on common ethnicity.
IV. How Playing with Nationalism is like Playing with Fire.
Much of the above is to some degree unfair to Goldberg, Gobry and others like them. After all, they certainly don’t favor the extreme nationalism of the Nazis and Fascists. They probably don’t even support the much milder nationalistic prejudices underpinning Senator Schumer’s protectionism. Instead, they only advocate “a little mystic nationalism” — just enough to bind us together in a “common identity,” as Gobry puts it. Unfortunately, history shows that it is extremely difficult to limit nationalism in such a fine-grained way. Once established, it readily morphs into chauvinism, protectionism and often much worse. To some extent, this is the result of people’s general “rational irrationality” about politics, which prevents them from objectively examining their political views. But, as discussed above, it is also partly the result of the inner logic of nationalism itself, which insists that we have special moral obligations to based on nationality, ethnicity, or culture. Playing with nationalism is a lot like playing with fire. It’s not inevitable that you will get burned, but the risk is high.
Goldberg argues that one of the things that makes the United States “great” is “that it is ours.” By that standard, any state can be considered “great” from the standpoint of its own nationalists who claim it as “theirs.” In my view, the US — or any nation — is only great in so far as it effectively promotes universal principles such as the protection of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” To the extent that the United States is more admirable than most other nations, it is in part because it was founded on those ideals rather than nationalism.
UPDATE: Lawrence Auster attacks this post by claiming that I am “against every human community other than a single universal mankind consisting of nothing but right-bearing individuals.” I think it pretty obvious that I am only attacking nationalism, which I described in the post as “loyalty to one’s own nation-state based on ties of language, culture, or ethnicity.” There are all sorts of human communities based on other types of connections — religion, ideology, interest, profession, family, neighborhood, friendship, and so on. Auster also misinterprets my argument when he claims that I think that to “see oneself as part of a particular people and to care about that people and to want that people to continue existing is a horribly dangerous attitude that must be scorned and crushed.” I have no objection to seeing oneself as part of a people. That is a purely empirical claim, with no necessary moral implications. I also have no objection to wanting a particular people to “continue existing.” What I do object to is the idea that we have special moral obligations to those who are part of our “people” in the sense of having the same ethnicity, race, language, or culture — obligations that at least sometimes trump the universal human rights of members of “other” peoples. There is a legitimate debate to be had over the value of nationalism. But that debate is not advanced by falsely claiming that opposition to nationalism is the same as opposition to all forms of community or the mere existence of peoples with differing cultures.
rpt says:
This is an excellent and well thought out post. One of the other aspects about Goldberg’s view (shared by many others who come under the neo-con banner) is that it requires other citizens to be the cannon fodder for the fulfillment of their cost-free nationalist visions. rpt(Quote)
Cornellian says:
Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg recently expressed the common view that “A little mystic nationalism is a good and healthy thing because it provides the emotional sinew that helps us hold onto our patriotism.”
Good thing the Founders were smarter than that or we’d all still be singing God Save the Queen. Cornellian(Quote)
Avatar says:
I think that here, you are underestimating the usefulness of nationalism as a shorthand for preservation of a country’s institutions. Of course, if you’re in a country that has a lot of bad institutions, no real rule of law, murderous tyrannical government, etc., that isn’t a good thing. No argument that tended towards the preservation of such social norms would be.
But in the US, we don’t have that. We have a set of institutions that, though not perfect, work pretty well and have worked pretty well for quite a long time. Overall the mix of individual freedoms, responsibilities, obligations, and rights have provided us with wealth, prosperity, prestige, safety, progress, and any number of good things. (It’s fair to say that our shortfalls in certain categories have also caused suffering, unhappiness, and inefficiency that might have otherwise been prevented. But it would be difficult to point to another country and say “well, have they not done better?”, especially if you consider that we’re shouldering the defense burden for –every– prosperous Western state.)
However... Such a conclusion isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to come to. Even quite educated people can believe in crackpot economic theories, for example — just witness how many Marxists you can find on college campuses, even though that system of economics and political control has failed utterly, everywhere. A lot of people don’t put much thought in the particular makeup of their social and political institutions, and while it’s fine to say “in the face of an angry man who has just been arrested, you should calmly explain how they benefit from access to an impartial justice system,” in practice you know it’s not likely to work.
Just as religion can give moral guidance to those without the inclination, wherewithal, or mental faculties to arrive independently at a system of ethics, a little nationalism can give an appreciation of our way of life to those who don’t desire to put in the time to fully analyze our system of governance for themselves. It need not be based on a religious, ethnic, or similar principles. At root, it’s simply an appreciation that the country is the way it is not least because of the sacrifices of those who have come before us, and the happy circumstance of our present prosperity is due at least in part to the systems that those forefathers built. Our political institutions aren’t merely legislative, executive, and judicial engines that we might take apart and break down for parts, but also the greatest part of the legacy that we have been fortunate enough to receive.
It’s true that the engine has a few knocks in it. But by happy circumstance, our forefathers predicted that we might run into problems like that, and have given us the tools to tune that engine. We haven’t always tuned it properly, but by and large we’ve done a pretty good job of it; one of the reasons we have is that we don’t make it a habit to tune the engine with a sledgehammer.
Not every country has succeeded. Many have failed, turned inward, become twisted parodies of themselves, butchered their own peoples and committed horrors the likes of which no American has experienced. Our country has persevered, and not by random chance. That’s the value of a little nationalism; it’s the appreciation that you can screw up, at a terrible cost in blood, and the thanks that we (by and large) have kept it together. Avatar(Quote)
Dan M. says:
It seems you could similarly argue that it’s evil to love your family. Dan M.(Quote)
AndyK says:
Would you distinguish between nationalism and provincialism / localism? That is, even accepting a welfarist conception of the good, can’t we say that concern with our “conationals” in some sense comes before (in a moral, not a practical sense, since you admit the possibility of the latter already) those far away?
I understand there to be value in identifying with people close to you, and not just in instrumental and economic terms (again, which you admit), but in non-instrumental and moral terms. And while I agree EXCESSIVE nationalism is a terrible thing, I can see regional difference based upon shared experience and geographic proximity to not be quite what you are getting at, and to be valuable. This sort of nationalism can be distinguished from the “sheerly” ethnic / racial.
I also see that your impetus here is at least partly informed by the theoretical imperialism of classical liberalism, which does not admit of national distinctions, as a monist theory of the good. What do you say to a value pluralist, who would make “the good” to be social-contextual? And (if the only dialogue we can have is in welfarist terms) can’t we perhaps say that we are better equipped to know “the good” in the case of those close to us, and know “the good” in our own case best of all? AndyK(Quote)
Orin Kerr says:
I get stuck on the “what is nationalism” question in trying to answer this. Orin Kerr(Quote)
Gabriel McCall says:
I agree with just about all your details but I’m not convinced by the argument. The analogy that springs to my mind is that although religion has been the source of much death and misery, so too are avowedly atheist states. Robert Heinlein made the point in one of his books that when people stop identifying primarily by national identity and start to define themselves by other characteristics or memberships, social order in that country is on its last legs.
People are, by nature and biology, tribal organisms. If they’re not defining their tribes based on nationalism, it’ll be something else– and there’s no reason to think that the something else will be any better. Gabriel McCall(Quote)
Rich Rostrom says:
I think Hayek was mistaken when he wrote “It is no real argument to say that an idea is un-American...” because “Americanism” is not just U.S. nationalism. The “House Un-American Activities Committee” was not created to oppose “foreign” ideas as such, but ideas and activities that were viewed as against the ethical and philosophical basis of America. That basis was not our language, religion, geographical location, ethnicity, or ruling dynasty, but the principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence and related works of the Founders, and American devotion to justice and the rule of law.
Mark Twain once noted that we have condemned Satan, “but we never hear his side. We have none but evidence for the prosecution and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English. It is un-American; it is French. Without this precedent Dreyfus could not have been condemned.” IOW, he viewed this injustice as un-American.
There is a similar tendency with regard to religion: the term “un-Christian” is nearly always used pejoratively, to condemn something as being against the professed ethical standards of Christianity.
BTW, I will concede freely that many nations or creeds might use parallel phraseology. Twain ascribed an equal respect for justice to Britain, and there were Frenchmen who denounced the railroading of Dreyfus as un-French.
OTOH, for some nations and creeds at times, practices or ideas have been condemned for mere association with foreignness. That is what Hayek meant to condemn, quite rightly. Rich Rostrom(Quote)
subpatre says:
Goldberg said “A little mystic nationalism is a good and healthy thing because it provides the emotional sinew that helps us hold onto our patriotism.”
A little salt is good for us, a lot of it is unhealthy, and extreme amounts are lethal. In critiquing Goldberg, Somin exposes one of the fatal weaknesses in libertarianism: globalism. Globalism is nationalism’s modern competitor, and is the shared bond between libertarianism and the communists.
Incongruous though it may be, libertarians turn a blind eye to the alternatives when they denounce nationalism and praise open borders. The only politically viable alternative to nations —and their attendant quota of nationalism and not-so-attractive patriotism— is globalism. To date, global governance has proven to be far worse toward every other principle libertarians espouse than national efforts have been. Go figure.
Extreme nationalism is bad, sure. But extremism is the culprit, not necessarily the nationalism. subpatre(Quote)
Oren says:
Is there any reason to think it will be worse?
IMO (and I understand this is not a common opinion), this is reversed logic. The principle comes first and subordinate to the principle is the institution by which we enact that principle.
Nationalism, at least in the sense that you’ve used it, is then a substitution of the means for the ends. My loyalty lies with a broad conception of individual freedom, not with the government that we have implemented in order to best secure those freedoms. Of course, I support that government but not qua that government, but rather because it continues to secure those freedoms. Oren(Quote)
Ricardo says:
Defining nationalism is an important part of the argument. I’m not sure whether or not Goldberg had ethnic nationalism (that is, nationalism that emphasizes the ties of blood, race, language or even religion in forming a common bond or body politic) in mind.
But this is very much on target as a critique of ethnic nationalism. It’s worth pointing out that ethnic nationalism was frequently tied up with anti-Semitism in Europe, even long before the Nazis. One of the early theorists of German nationalism, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, was a raving anti-Semite who saw European Jews as a “state within a state” who would rightly be denied citizenship in the German nation-state he advocated creating.
In 19th century Poland, the Jewish community practiced different traditions, lived in separate communities and spoke a different language from the Catholics. By 1921, 75% of Jews identified their primary nationality as “Jewish” on the Polish Census. Most Poles probably did not consider Jews to be Polish either. This kind of tendency is almost inevitable when nationality is defined primarily by blood descent, race or language. A more cosmopolitan concept of nationality that emphasizes shared values or ideals above ethnicity leads to less conflict in the long-run. In the U.S., it is much less likely that a large percentage of any American-born minority would identify their nationality as anything other than “American.” Ricardo(Quote)
Ken Arromdee says:
I am not convinced that we can really criticize wanting the NBA to buy American even though it’s bad for third-worlders. Buying NBA uniforms from Americans instead of poor Thais isn’t really worse than paying for basketball games at all instead of skipping the game and giving the entire price of the basketball game as a donation to poor Thais. Sure, the American uniforms give you only a feeling of satisfaction with no meaning. So does a whole basketball game.
We must accept arbitrary reasons and aesthetic judgments with no practical effect when buying luxuries, because otherwise the very concept of buying luxuries becomes immoral. Ken Arromdee(Quote)
D.O. says:
This is a side note to the main post. The general idea seems great to me. Whatever nationalism exactly is, the desire to have more of it is stupid and dangerous. Some degree of nationalism in the people oppressed by foreign force is, if not desireable, but understandable and maybe useful (but not too much). But not for a free nation. Now the side point. I do not see how Sen. Schumer’s stance is nationalism. It is an attempt (lame and misguided) of constituency protection or maybe just grandstanding. And analogy with moving to Texas does not play, he might have also lobbied for a factory staying in NY in that hypothetical, for sure, with other words. And then, why the link to the stupid comment with sophomoric humor? D.O.(Quote)
Perseus says:
Not exactly. To be sure, unlike modern nationalism, simply being a distinct people did not constitute a sufficient reason to revolt or create an independent state (tyranny had to be present), but, like it or not, a sort of nationalism played a prominent role in the nation’s founding. For example, John Jay:
With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.
This country and this people seem to have been made for each other...
One only has to think that because politics (unlike economics) is mainly about who rules, it is far more likely to be a zero-sum game.
This is the age old tension between one’s own and the good. But if you’re really serious about eliminating chauvinism in all its forms (nation, town, family, friends), you are led to the rule of philosophers in a communist regime... Perseus(Quote)
Engineer says:
It seems you could similarly argue that it’s evil to love your family.
Indeed.
It’s not difficult to point out what nationalistic sentiments can lead to in extreme instances.
But Somin (or whomever) should then state what they recommend instead eg. hyperindividualism, nihilism, pacifism, or whatever. Libertarians would probably go for hyperindividualism. Engineer(Quote)
Ricardo says:
But who, aside from actual, literal Communists, is “really serious about eliminating chauvinism in all its forms”? Somin’s argument was against nationalism in particular and there is good reason to think nationalism has the potential to be more insidious than loyalty to town, family or friends. For one thing, one’s association with town and friends (and even family to a more limited extent) is voluntary. In a free society, it is much more difficult to separate oneself from one’s country than from the others. A nation also has the power to tax, go to war and arrest and jail in the name of some common interest or goal. Conservatives who believe in a limited federal government should understand this point better than most. American nationalists have not always been the friends of a federal government of enumerated powers — Teddy Roosevelt, for instance.
As for the alternative to nationalism, I believe it has already been covered: “In my view, the US — or any nation — is only great in so far as it effectively promotes universal principles such as the protection of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” To the extent that the United States is more admirable than most other nations, it is in part because it was founded on those ideals rather than nationalism.” Ricardo(Quote)
FC says:
Prof. Somin has previously claimed that he would rather be raped than conscripted.
Combine that with this post and his worldview seems rather bizarre to me. FC(Quote)
Pensans says:
Competing ethnic nationalism are a bulwark against statism. The only hope for the United States is a reawakening of ethnic nationalisms arrayed against the state. Multiculturalism and cosmopolitianism are the philosophies of empires and tyrants. In the United States, to oppose ethnic nationalism is to oppose freedom. Pensans(Quote)
Perseus says:
Only libertarians believe that’s completely true or desirable.
As Aristotle would say, politics is all about organizing your regime around a common way of life.
As for the alternative posited of devotion to universal principles, it is no less prone to murderous excesses, e.g., the French Revolution, John Brown, and the various Communist regimes and terrorist groups. Perseus(Quote)
David Cohen says:
Oxygen, too, is very dangerous, even if used as directed. So long as we’re remaking human beings, lets get rid of our pesky reliance on oxygen.
Which is to say, the drawing of lines between “us” and “them” is innately human and not something that we can discard. The brilliance of American nationalism is that we include a highly diverse group of people as “us” and we let members of “them” choose to cross the border and become “us” (even though, at the moment, we’re kind of conflicted about that).
In other words, don’t let the (impossible) best (let’s all just get along) be the enemy of the good. Maybe a world in which there is no in-group and out-group would be better, but we’ll never know. David Cohen(Quote)
sk says:
Blah blah blah.
As others have pointed out, it depends how you define nationalism. Ultimately, nationalism is love of country greater than I personally believe in. Patriotism is love of country exactly as much as I personally believe in. Nationalism is bad. Patriotism is good. (subsitute yourself for ‘I’ in the above sentences).
In other words, the gist of this post is that anyone who believes in his country more than I do is a baddy. But anyone who believes in his country exactly as much as I do is a good guy. Ho hum.
Aside from the obvious absurdities of the argument (without love of country, whether defined as nationalism or patriotism, who would serve in the armed forces? Without love of community, whether defined as provincialism or community spirit, who would serve as a cop, social worker, soup kitchen employee, teacher, advisor, counsellor? And so on and so on).
“It seems you could similarly argue that it’s evil to love your family.” And neighbors, and community, and any group of individuals other than the abstract ‘other.’
Its Spockian arguments like this that give libertarianism its bad name.
Sk. sk(Quote)
Sara says:
Then there is the nationalism example from our own history, which nearly destroyed the US: the civil war. Sara(Quote)
Ricardo says:
A few other points about nationalism:
1. Feelings of nationalism in a diverse country (like Turkey, France or Russia before they were “nations”) have to come from somewhere. It is typically not the invisible hand of the free market or the institutions of voluntary civil society that create nationalism. It is rather the centralized state through a program of a mandatory national curriculum in government-run schools, mandatory national service (military or otherwise) and large public works projects or other visible and expensive signs of national prestige and glory. Just look at the histories of these and similar nation-building success stories.
2. To maintain nationalistic sentiment, there needs to be a feeling of shared struggle, purpose or (more insidiously) victimization. Again, it is typically the strong, centralized state that defines the struggle or purpose, whether it is increasing steel production according to the latest 5 year plan, fighting a protracted war, getting the capital city ready in time for the Olympics [it’s worth pointing out that Chinese nationalists overwhelmingly embraced the idea of hosting the Olympics — the exact opposite of sneering American conservative pundits like Goldberg], building dams and canals, etc. People who advocate mandatory national service are exactly right in their thinking — I disagree with their premises but it really is true that mandatory service would increase feelings of nationalism. Mandatory voting and other such mandated participation in national rituals or traditions also works by supplying people with a common bond.
The punchline is that I really don’t see how you can be pro-limited government and nationalistic at the same time. You can certainly be a big-government liberal or a hawkish, populist conservative and a nationalist at the same time. But limited government nationalist? Forget it. A program of flat taxes and privatized social security simply does not arouse nationalistic sentiment. Ricardo(Quote)
TruePath says:
I agree that as a philosophical position nationalism, like valuing the lives of family members more than strangers, is flawed. However, as a practical matter it’s unreasonable to expect people to act as perfect altruists and many theoretically flawed patterns of behavior may be better than any plausible alternative.
For instance the human allegiance to family allows one to avoid certain defection problems that would otherwise scuttle much altruistic behavior. Because of the pressure we feel not to abandon our families and the likelihood of repeat interactions people gain access to help during difficult times that free riding problems would make impossible to aquire from strangers.
It seems quite possible that some degree of nationalism serves the same function. While some soldiers might have fought in WWII out of pure altruism I suspect you can count the number who lacked national or ethnic connections to combatants/victims but nonetheless joined the allied forces on one hand (ok maybe double digits). In the absence of something like nationalism/patriotism there would be no reasonable way to field armies against even the most horrific evils. I mean who wants to be the sucker who volunteers while everyone else simply free rides?
Nationalism itself may be new but it’s just an expansion of tribal loyalty to a larger group and that tribal loyalty likely evolved to overcome just this kind of collective action problem.
That having been said modern nation states have far too much nationalism. TruePath(Quote)
Richard Aubrey says:
The argument about Schumer and the NBA uniforms strikes me as at least inadvertently bogus.
Can anyone conceive of Schumer seeing a cause greater than himself?
IMO, his arguments are to spend more money on uniforms because when the NBA does it, he can claim credit–and get votes and campaign money and lobbyists’ money.
Protectionism has a lot of roots, most of them having to do with spending money where the recipients can vote–however erroneously–for the protectionists. Richard Aubrey(Quote)
AnonAgain says:
At the risk of being flip, the best quote I’ve ever read about nationalism is that it’s “a bandwagon for morons.” AnonAgain(Quote)
Ricardo says:
It is true under any common definition of “voluntary.” Family needs to be qualified but every country in the world is full of examples of people leaving their hometowns for the big city and leaving friends behind. My libertarian credentials would come under attack pretty quickly here so you assume rather too much.
The excesses of the French Revolution or John Brown are far exceeded by Nazism, genocide in the Balkans, Japanese and Spanish nationalistic fascism and countless ethnically-based civil wars in Africa. Additionally, they are easily counter-balanced by the American Revolution (supported by Burke who opposed the French Revolution at around the same time). As for Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot, they were explicitly nationalistic and treated ethnic minorities savagely.
Extremist ideology of any kind is very dangerous but history shows nationalism is far more prone to devolve toward extremism than an ideology based on limited government and fundamental rights. Ricardo(Quote)
Loren Heal says:
On the other hand, you are abusing a straw man.
Men such as Hitler are nationalists.
Hitlers are bad.
Therefore, all nationalists are bad.
It was our own nationalism, and that of the Britons and other patriots around the world, that ultimately defeated him. That, and his irrational hatred of the Jews.
My own position is that nationalist feeling is a good thing of which it is possible to have too much. But the alternatives, a power vacuum and a world government, are easy to see as worse than nationalism. Loren Heal(Quote)
Engineer says:
I agree that as a philosophical position nationalism, like valuing the lives of family members more than strangers, is flawed. However, as a practical matter it’s unreasonable to expect people to act as perfect altruists and many theoretically flawed patterns of behavior may be better than any plausible alternative.
Phew... Just imagine if instead of nationalized healthcare we had to pay for global healthcare. Engineer(Quote)
wws says:
I don’t see anything wrong with a little bit of nationalism. That’s why us Texans know we’re better than the rest of you chumps, after all!
(LOL, anonagain!) wws(Quote)
Widmerpool says:
I agree with Prof. Somin and look forward to a return to the historical norm. Holy Roman Empire, anyone? anyone? Oh, come now, I’ll throw in some feudalism too. But first, we must kill all the lawyers. Widmerpool(Quote)
wm13 says:
As it relates to causes of nationalism, this is by no means an uncontested historical analysis. I would argue that modern conditions (increased ease of transportation and communication, the increased importance of education, new forms of military organization resulting from new technologies, etc., etc.) caused national sentiment to supplant older loyalites to locality, lord and church. The growth of nationalism in the 19th century was not primarily a product of conscious state indoctrination. wm13(Quote)
A faceless bureaucrat says:
I do not perceive that there is currently a viable alternative to the nation-state, and its associated concept “nationalism.” I think that the good professor is judging a concept solely by its abuses and neglecting to provide an alternative conceptual framework. A faceless bureaucrat(Quote)
bartman says:
Simplest definition of nationalism:
“People born within the same set of arbitrary lines on the map as me are better human beings than people born outside those arbitrary lines.”
Or you can say that people the same color as me are better than people of a different color, or people who speak the same language as me are better than those who don’t, or people who have the same belief set as me are better than those who don’t.
Collectivism can’t survive without these conceits. bartman(Quote)
Tracy W says:
I doubt your claim about being laughed for saying t-shirts should be made in New York, not Texas. There is a significant “buy local” movement, as in localer-than-merely country-level. Only free traders like me appear to laugh at those people. Tracy W(Quote)
FGH says:
Ernst Renan (1823–92) studied law and theology.Renan’s essay on the nation is the classical text of “civic” nationalism, the French counterpoint to the “ethnic” nationalism of German writers like Fichte and Herder.
“Let me sum up, Gentlemen. Man is a slave neither of his race nor his language, nor of his religion, nor of the course of rivers nor of the direction taken by mountain chains. A large aggregate of men, healthy in mind and warm of heart, creates the kind of moral conscience which we call a nation. So long as this moral consciousness gives proof of its strength by the sacrifices which demand the abdication of the individual to the advantage of the community, it is legitimate and has the right to exist. If doubts arise regarding its frontiers, consult the populations in the areas under dispute. They undoubtedly have the right to a say in the matter. This recommendation will bring a smile to the lips of the transcendants of politics, these infallible beings who spend their lives deceiving themselves and who, from the height of their superior principles, take pity upon our mundane concerns. “Consult the populations, for heaven’s sake! How naive! A fine example of those wretched French ideas which claim to replace diplomacy and war by childishly simple methods.” Wait a while, Gentlemen; let the reign of the transcendants pass; bear the scorn of the powerful with patience. It may be that, after many fruitless gropings, people will revert to our more modest empirical solutions. The best way of being right in the future is, in certain periods, to know how to resign oneself to being out of fashion.”
—Renan, Ernest. “What is a Nation?” in Eley, Geoff and Suny, Ronald Grigor, ed. 1996. Becoming National: A Reader. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996: pp. 41–55. See especially pp. 52–54. FGH(Quote)
Mark Field says:
I guess that Sweden, then, is not socialist. Whew. With all the comments here warning of socialism in the US, it’s good to have a bright line test which shows them wrong. Mark Field(Quote)
Floridan says:
Perseus quotes John Jay on the United States, “. . . a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs . . .”
John Jay was, of course, quite wrong. That is unless he was referring only to a portion of the people populating the new nation. Floridan(Quote)
Non-ethnic patriot says:
I think much of the post is right about ethnic nationalism, but that particular –ism is quite distinct from patriotism grounded in the polity/State or jurisdiction/geography. In fact, as both a theoretical and empirical/historical matter, the two are often opposed. The Roman Empire, Austro-Hungarian, and the USA have all, to varying degrees in different periods, encouraged different ethnicities to value citizenship in the shared polity above ethnic bonds. Austria in the early 20th century is a good example, because it went from multinational patriotism in the old empire to losing that identity once it was just Germanic Austria after World War I, and then fell into the pan-Germanism that led to the Anschluss with Nazi Germany.
That’s not to say that non-ethnic patriotism does not also have its faults, but the distinction should be recognized. And of course, patriotism and nationalism can be combined, or opposed, or partly blended. That is, some “nation-building” has encouraged ethnicism in a way that oppresses minorities, while other “state-building” has sought to overcome differences by stressing a common heritage. Sometimes it’s in-between, as it invites in those of any genetic ethnic origin, but asks them to “melt” in and adopt cultural markers that originated in a different ethnic group and may or may not have transcended that origin. Language is the strongest example.
Much more to say here, but can’t stress enough the problem I have with your first premise. In particular, I don’t Goldberg or Schumer were being nationalist, but were being America-firsters in the non-ethnic sense. I still disagree withj trade protectionism, but wouldn’t call it ethnic. Non-ethnic patriot(Quote)
Tweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Against Nationalism -- Topsy.com says:
...Max... says:
Personally, I wouldn’t mind the global government at all if its competencies were constitutionally limited to asteroid defense and freedom of the seas. I mean, what other legitimate functions could it have? ...Max...(Quote)
MFS says:
It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: the central flaw of metropolitanism is that, when threatened, no one will take up arms to defend it. Of all the practical weaknesses of libertarianism as an actual governing philosophy, this is its most serious drawback.
BTW Goldberg is a conservative writer, not a neoconservative one. I’m sure previous commenters are not resorting to a “Goldberg = Jew = Neocon” formulation, but I think we all need to step up and correct that sort of nonsense before it has a chance to fester.
Best wishes,
–MFS MFS(Quote)
CJColucci says:
I’ve gone back to the original Goldberg post to see just what brought all this on. I couldn’t find anything in it serious or comprehensible enough to rise to the level of being wrong, let alone worthy of extended comment. CJColucci(Quote)
Martinned says:
My only problem with the analysis here is that I never quite know how to distinguish between nationalism and patriotism. As I commented in the past, something like the pledge of allegiance gives me the creeps, as do the American practices of ubiquitous flag flying, flag pins, singing the national anthem at sporting events (i.e. not at the prize ceremony, but before).
Mostly because of the war, Dutch people, like modern Germans, are extremely suspicious of all such “patriotism”. We only fly flags on a few holidays (Queen’s Day, WW II memorial day) and at national team football matches. And even during the latter most fans prefer to leave their flags at home and simply paint everything uniformly orange. Martinned(Quote)
Martinned says:
To stop countries from invading each other? Martinned(Quote)
dave says:
If one lives in a good polity — i.e. one with rules and norms that one finds ethically acceptable — why should one not feel loyalty towards it? That is a rational appreciation of the benefits of good order for oneself and one’s kith and kin. To move from such an appreciation, which could and might fairly be labelled as ‘patriotism’, to the set of invidious comparisons between ‘us’ and ‘them’ necessary to foster anything worthy of description as ‘nationalism’, can only be a decline — in ethical standards of judgment, and in actual rationality.
Nationalism all too often implies that one suspends critical judgment about the actions of one’s state, so long as it is acting against ‘others’: the mentality of the many Americans who despise their own government, in all its actions except those that involve killing foreigners, is remarkably apposite here.
There is nothing wrong with having warm, fuzzy feelings about the place to which you ‘belong’, but at the very heart of nationalism as a concept is the abuse of such feelings to drag people into unquestioned loyalty. Patriotism ought to be a spur to critical engagement — when it becomes a demand for allegiance without reserve, it is not patriotism, but a poisonous nationalism. dave(Quote)
James T. Carrington says:
Having played Modern Warfare 2 over the weekend, there are two nice Einstein quotes in between matches:
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
&
Nationalism, on my opinion, is nothing more than an idealistic rationalization for militarism and aggression. James T. Carrington(Quote)
...Max... says:
To stop countries from invading each other?
That’s a sure pavestone for the road to hell. ...Max...(Quote)
bartman says:
Anything to back up this assertion? If New York City were an independent city-state, and it was under threat of invasion from rural upstaters who wanted to turn it into farmland, you think that nobody would rise up in defence of it?
BTW, the root meaining of the world “metropolis” is “mother city,” which has the distinct ring of tribalism to me. Maybe you could think up another, more appropriate, name for your bete noire “–ism”. I prefer to define it as a kind of cosmopolitan humanism, where judgement of the quality of an individual is based upon his voluntary actions, as opposed to judgement based upon where he popped out of the womb, or what language he speaks, or what food he eats.
But then again, I am a citizen of the world, not tied to where I was born by tradition. bartman(Quote)
B.D. says:
Here, I refer to loyalty to one’s own nation-state based on ties of language, culture, or ethnicity.
Despite your attempt to define nationalism, you have left undefined some of the descriptive terms. Particularly, what do you mean by “loyalty” or “culture”?
I love my country, its culture—there’s that word again!—its traditions, its language, its history. America has been good to me and my family.
But I am also loyal to my country. I suppose you could say that loyalty is based on my belief in the Constitution and the principles for which it stands. Generally speaking, the more my country deviates from its liberal democratic values the more my loyalty to the state dissipates . . . and yet my love for my country remains. I understand that distinction.
But our unique democratic experiment is surely based in part on our Anglo-Saxon cultural inheritance. Is there something wrong with me loving that about America and thus remaining loyal to my country even when it fails to live up to its own promise? If America had an extraconstitutional dictator during a time of war or national crisis—like, say, Lincoln or Wilson—would it be wrongly “nationalistic” for me to support his efforts if doing so would help preserve a culture that gave rise to our liberal democracy?
I guess what I’m saying is this: to what extent can you render culture-neutral our allegiance to certain democratic values? B.D.(Quote)
David Chesler says:
What DanM and Orin Kerr said. Taking pride in oneself, having a good opinion of oneself is a good thing. But some people have such high opinions of themselves that they commit mass murder of the inferior others.
People work for the good of others more willingly the more closely they feel tied to them. Parents support their own children. Until we establish planetary pride, national pride is a good motivator. David Chesler(Quote)
Kirk Parker says:
David Cohen,
Who’s conflicted about this? There are a few (call them Buchananites, if you like) who really do think it’s a racial and ethnic issue–but they’ve long felt that way, alas. Meanwhile, the rest of us notice that the boldfaced part of the deal hasn’t been being kept up recently, and not surprisingly worry about that a bit... Kirk Parker(Quote)
Martinned says:
Why? If NATO can do it, why not do it at a global level? It may not be practically possible, but the problem is sooner that the system would be too weak than too agressive. Martinned(Quote)
Oren says:
Noting and accepting the existence of the distinction is not, in itself, nationalism. Nationalism implies a normative judgment regarding us and them. Oren(Quote)
Oren says:
A person who believed in the cause for which we were fighting? A person that wanted to teach/police/feed, irrespective of the particulars of the institution for which he was working?
Is it so hard to believe that people can believe in principles as distinct from the institutions that exist to support those principles? Martin Luther was a true believer in spite of his contempt for the Catholic Church, or maybe even because. Oren(Quote)
ricky says:
You know what else is incredibly stupid? Familyism. The idea that I should care more about someone, for the completely arbitrary reason of their being more closely biologically related to me than someone else, is absurd. That’s why I send money to feed kids in Africa while letting my own kids starve.
And you wonder why most people see Libertarianism as a silly, foolish cult for immature autistics. ricky(Quote)
Seamus says:
And that would be a bad thing why? Seamus(Quote)
B.D. says:
Do libertarians believe that? Or are you just making a stupid argument? B.D.(Quote)
...Max... says:
You know what else is incredibly stupid? Familyism.
And you wonder why most people see Libertarianism as a silly, foolish cult for immature autistics.
Uh... I’m afraid you have just demonstrated your own maturity level in your choice of strawman. ...Max...(Quote)
B.D. says:
I guess ricky thinks the nation is basically a large extension of the family. A Volk, if you will.
See how easy it is to play loose with someone else’s ideas and make them look bad? B.D.(Quote)
Seamus says:
What? Are the Dutch ashamed of the way their patriotic forebears fought (albeit unsuccessfully) for their native land during the war? Seamus(Quote)
bartman says:
Haven’t quite grasped the difference between private and public yet, huh, Ricky? bartman(Quote)
Gordo says:
The main point to be taken from Professor Somin’s excellent post is this: while there are many reasons to distrust or be repelled by the version of “internationalism” currently being offered us, and the version of “federalism” being offered Europeans, a return to “nationalism” is not the antidote to this problem. I would submit that a better internationalism is the answer. Gordo(Quote)
Nationalism v. Patriotism « The Noble Bereans says:
Martinned says:
No, which is why May 4 and 5 (memorial of the dead and celebration of the victory, respectively) are among the few days that we do fly the flag. Martinned(Quote)
bartman says:
What about “voluntary associationism”? bartman(Quote)
Joshua House says:
On my response to Professor Somin:
I want to note that I am not repeatedly posting the link to my response, others are. It is posted over at Joshblackman.com . Here’s an excerpt:
“Rather than offer my own thoughts on nationalism (though I should say that I tend to agree with Professor Somin more than I do with Mr. Goldberg), I want to examine a common problem with this debate. Mr. Goldberg hints at the issue in his statement; the problem is that there is a blurry line between patriotism and nationalism. I often say that most arguments in the world would be immediately solved if people were using the same words to describe the same things. I feel that this is yet another disagreement exacerbated by a definitional mismatch.”
In the post, I explore the distinctions between the two definitions in depth. Joshua House(Quote)
SeaDrive says:
Not to defend Schumer, but there are plenty of reasons for choosing a product or a vendor other than price. SeaDrive(Quote)
Ryan Waxx says:
This is indeed an excellent post. The subheads are so accurate:
“How Playing with Nationalism is like Playing with Fire.”
And to use that analogy, rejecting all nationalism is about as intelligent as rejecting all use of fire on the basis that it could get out of control. Ryan Waxx(Quote)
sk says:
“Having played Modern Warfare 2 over the weekend, there are two nice Einstein quotes in between matches:
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
&
Nationalism, on my opinion, is nothing more than an idealistic rationalization for militarism and aggression.”
Einstein was very lucky that a couple of million nationalist farmboys from the US (and Russia, and Britain) didn’t buy into those opinions. I guess a life of luxury at Princeton didn’t expose him to many of those farmboys.
sk sk(Quote)
B.D. says:
Right, like quality. What else? B.D.(Quote)
Ryan Waxx says:
Internationalism is Nationalism to a faceless bureaucracy with the bonus feature that when things go horribly wrong, there’s no place of sanity to escape to. Ryan Waxx(Quote)
Ryan Waxx says:
To be fair to Einstein, one could also say that the courage to overcome his nationalism when his country went essentially insane saved us a great deal of blood. The only way to account for both Einstein’s defection and for the bravery of young Americans to cross an ocean to die in huge numbers is to realize that this attempt of Ilya Somin and several commenters here to insinuate that any nationalism at all implies murderous and unjust nationalism is a false choice.
Just as our young men didn’t cross the Atlantic in order to “cause mass murder and oppression” in our host’s words, neither did Einstein let nationalism bind him to build the bomb for Hitler. Moderation is possible in (nearly) all things, and someone who claims it isn’t is trying to pull a fast one on you. Ryan Waxx(Quote)
Joel B. says:
IV. How Playing with
Nationalismcombustion is like Playing with Fire.Much of the above is to some degree unfair
to Goldberg, Gobry and others like them.to the automobile.After all, they certainly don’t favor the extreme nationalism of the Nazis and Fascists.After all, the car certainly won’t burn down a forest.They probably don’t even support the much milder nationalistic prejudices underpinning Senator Schumer’s protectionism.They probably don’t even support the much milder use of fire to heat their homes.Instead, they only advocate “a little mystic nationalism” — just enough to bind us together in a “common identity,” as Gobry puts it.Instead they advocate only little explosions in controlled chambers to produce a great deal of work.Unfortunately, history shows that it is extremely difficult to limit nationalism in such a fine-grained way.Unfortunately, history shows that it is extremely difficult to limit fire in such a fine-grained way.Once established, it readily morphs into chauvinism, protectionism and often much worse.Once those explosions start it readily morphs is to forest destroying fires and intergalatic climate change and often much worse.Does history also show that without some kind of common bond, none of it all lasts very long? Somin’s position seems like a very um..selective read of history. And in fact, an argument that could be made for or against anything...Almost anything taken to its extreme is dangerous, so arguing that taking something to the extreme is dangerous is um...well at least it should not be very persuasive. (Not to say all slippery slope arguments are bad, it just seems like there needs to be some analysis towards the slope and this one seems poorly done.) Joel B.(Quote)
Perseus says:
Burke was sympathetic to the American cause but it was not because he endorsed the metaphysical half-truths and blather about the abstract “rights of men” found in the DoI (“the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen...They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles. ...My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection”). As for various Communist dictators, they did mix in elements of nationalism, but that did not constitute the core of their ideology. Perseus(Quote)
David Cohen says:
Kirk Parker:
As it happens, while not quite an open immigrationist, I’m all but. But it clearly isn’t that case that merely being within the national borders makes someone part of “us.” What we might call “land nationalism” is impossible to justify. But the US is an idea, and anyone who shares that idea can be “us.” David Cohen(Quote)
Mark Field says:
True enough as far as it goes, but Stalin very much relied on an appeal to defend Mother Russia to win WWII. It wasn’t communist, but it was effective. Mark Field(Quote)
troll_dc2 says:
Once again, we have emphatic people talking past one another.
When I read about patriotism and nationalism, I cannot get the ending of Die Meistersinger out of my head, no matter how unfair it may be to Wagner’s image today:
troll_dc2(Quote)
Doc Merlin says:
Nationalism as opposed to factionalism or racial identity was essential in building the modern nation state. People placing their identity as a sort of club instead of with complex family/tribal/racial ties allowed for very large institutions to develop and prosper.
Ilya, I don’t see how you can be against nationalism unless you are either an internationalist or an anarchist. So, which one is it? My guess would be, that you would be an ancap. Am I correct? Doc Merlin(Quote)
Steven says:
If by definition all things bad are nationalist and all things good are not, then it is bad....
But if you consider that part of the national identity of the US are its universal principles... and that people pushing the language and culture do so in the name of keeping the universal principles passed on (you have to be able to speak with the majority in order to hear it’s history... your still free to reject it past that....)... more than a love of blood (which doesn’t even exist, as such, here) and soil... it gets murkier.
Without some kind of patrotism and love of country, who wants to be the last person to die for the right to shop at big box stores?
Also, someone above made the point that if you take away the national identity, people will just adopt other forms... which can often be worse. Even the climategate thing showed (or should) that people self define into tribes... even people who think themselves so much better than that sort of thing. Steven(Quote)
richard monahan says:
richard monahan(Quote)
troll_dc2 says:
With respect to this country, I think that a great deal of the problem is the “my country right or wrong” mentality. It attempts to shut down dissent, it tends to overlook embarrassing problems, and it intimidates people into agreeing with whomever is in charge.
The United States is different from most countries. Many people come here on purpose; this country is based on a loosely understood ideology, and you can become an American merely by buying into it. You cannot easily become a German, say, merely by moving to Germany (as a German-born person of Turkish descent has emphatically told me). Moreover, if you meet immigrants, as I have, you may be struck by how readily they are willing to give up the customs, beliefs, and everything else associated with the country in which they were born. I daresay that there are not that many who would do the same in reverse.
So there is something here. But the more we emphasize it, the less we have it. A paradox of sorts, yes? troll_dc2(Quote)
lucklucky says:
Nationalism is natural. By default for survival you should defend the people that are with you, that share your objectives and future.
Now might occur specific reasons that turns it unwise. Like a lunatic tribe leader, or that you think very differently than people around you over a wide range of subjects, etc. lucklucky(Quote)
Micha Elyi says:
The Founders of these United States sought to preserve their rights as Englishmen against the infringements of the crown, Cornellian.
What was it about “a little mystic nationalism” that you didn’t understand? Micha Elyi(Quote)
John Thacker says:
And would not this paragraph apply equally well (and equally speciously) to Darwinism and Sociobiology? Used “as a justification for protectionism, discrimination against minority groups, suppression of dissent, and the like.” Check. We can include involuntary sterilization among that too.
Could not someone claim that “if you genuinely believe that the best adapted survive, then consistency requires that you be willing to sacrifice the rights of others to help you and your kin group. After all, if those being oppressed were really better adapted, they’d survive your machinations, and it’s only the natural way of the world if they don’t. his is particularly so, if you believe as many biologists and Darwinists do, that international politics and economics and life is often a zero-sum game between different nations and ethnic groups and races and species.” John Thacker(Quote)
John Thacker says:
Awesome. We’ve also demonstrated then that atheism is pernicious, since nearly all full-blown officially atheist regimes have engaged in mass murder. OTOH, we’ve established the same about religion. John Thacker(Quote)
~FR says:
Very few people were nationalistic until various European governments started indoctrinating their populations in nationalist ideology in the 19th century. Prior to that time, few objected to the existence of multinational polities such as the Holy Roman Empire (at least on nationalistic grounds) or believed that any important moral obligations could be based on common ethnicity.
Both William Wallace and Joan of Arc would find your statements...
...disturbing.
In all seriousness, we must be thinking of wildly different things here, because the text quoted above does not withstand even casual examination. ~FR(Quote)
bbbeard says:
I’m an advocate of “national security libertarianism”. That is, we seem to be in a situation, at least here in the U.S., where the liberty we all want to be our default state of being is best secured within the confines of our nation-state.
Some advocates of a global government seem to envision a moderate liberal democratic regime. But if you look at a map, you will see that surrendering sovereignty to a global government would mean surrendering to a group of foreign dictators and accepting a socialist regime “forever”. For now, it is best to keep our borders intact, arrange our own liberties, push for democracies elsewhere as we can, and revel in our “nationalism”....
BBB bbbeard(Quote)
St. Joe Friday says:
“Certainly, Schumer would never think of denouncing the New York Knicks for buying uniforms manufactured in Texas.”
Actually it would all depend on whether the factory’s owners had contibuted to Sen. Schumer or his party. St. Joe Friday(Quote)
St. Joe Friday says:
“Moreover, if you meet immigrants, as I have, you may be struck by how readily they are willing to give up the customs, beliefs, and everything else associated with the country in which they were born.”
Uh, Troll_dc2 you ever been to Southern California? You won’t see many of the immigrants we’ve got here giving up their language or their customs or their beliefs. Lots of them no habla ingles but they do expect you to habla espanol. St. Joe Friday(Quote)
Oren says:
Because we needed those nationalists to defeat even more rabid nationalists? Not a slam dunk case really.
Of course, if you believe that others cannot be rehabilitated then you must have your own nationalism for not other purpose than to get swept up by others .... Oren(Quote)
Ricardo says:
Ideology is for philosophers. In the actual practice of power and politics by these dictators, nationalism was a “core” part of what they actually did because it is so effective. See Pol Pot’s genocide of the Chinese community in Cambodia (anti-Chinese racism is the rough Southeast Asian equivalent of anti-Semitism) or Stalin’s numerous campaigns of genocide and ethnic cleansing against non-Russians in the Soviet Union. For that matter, consider the substance of his dispute with Trotsky and remember who won.
Nationalism was not a “core” part of Communist ideology in the beginning. It became part of the practice of Communism when it became clear to practitioners of Communism just how useful nationalism was for manipulating people. Ricardo(Quote)
Twirlip says:
This essay is way over the top I’m afraid. Mass murder preceded the rise of the nation state by several thousand years.
I’ve read Hayek on nationalism, and he is just empirically wrong. Nationalism does not neccessarily lead to socialism. Virtualy all of the nations of the West, very much including the United States, used to be far more nationalistic than they are today. And they also used to be far less socialistic. Compare the size of the federal government now to what it was in Goldwaters day. Twirlip(Quote)
Twirlip says:
Considering that that’s what actually happened, I’m confused as to why you think it’s not a “slam dunk case”. It is one. Twirlip(Quote)
Twirlip says:
States don’t exist to do such things. They exist, as people such as Locke and Mill and the actual “classical liberals” understood and articulated, to promote the interests of particular groups of people. The libertarian notion of a world without nations (or groups of people) is not classically liberal in origin. It owes much more to utopian socialism. Twirlip(Quote)
Twirlip says:
Ilya Somin sure seems to be, if words mean anything. Twirlip(Quote)
Twirlip says:
I take it you don’t consider Alexander Solzhenitsyn to have been a prominent Eastern European dissident then, because he has said some very good things about nationalism. For instance
“In recent times it has been fashionable to talk of the levelling of nations, of the disappearance of different races in the melting-pot of contemporary civilization. I do not agree with this opinion, but its discussion remains another question. Here it is merely fitting to say that the disappearance of nations would impoverish us no less then if all men had become alike with one personality, one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities. The very least of them wears its own special colors, and bears within itself a special facet of God’s design.” Twirlip(Quote)
Twirlip says:
This is ahistorical rubbish. The Teutons and the Gauls fighting the Romans are just one example. You’re so determined to make your vision of the world the one going forward that your’re rewriting history like some Soviet commissar. Twirlip(Quote)
Martinned says:
Solzhenitsyn is one of my favourite writers, but he had some very strange ideas about a range of issues. I certainly wouldn’t put him in the same category of “dissidents” as Havel and Sakharov. Martinned(Quote)
Martinned says:
Nationalism, by any reasonable definition, is a 18th century invention. Before that time, people did not identify as members of a nation, but more likely as members of a clan, a family, a community or a variety of other groups at a smaller scale. The factual matter of the state or region they lived in, or the sovereign they were a subject of did not enter into people’s identity. Martinned(Quote)
Twirlip says:
I don’t see why not. In the category “dissidents” he has to rank right at the very top. You may chose to demote him for unrelated reasons, such as disagreeing with his take on nationalism. Just be clear about why you’re doing it. Twirlip(Quote)
Twirlip says:
etc.
I was respondng to Somin’s words, which I quoted in full. Pertinent to this are the following:
As I pointed out, common ethnicity (a direct precursor and close relative to nationalism) can be found throughout history as a driving force behind wars and other things. Somin also makes it clear that his objection is to shared group identity period, not merely nationalism. So, respectfully, I think your response misses the point.
No, it pretty much did. Among the features of the Middle Ages were ethnic pogroms and “state” (or kingdom or empire) laws which differed dependng on your religious group. For instance, Jews could borrow and lend money while Christians could not. Or think of the Moors in post Reconquista Spain. I suggest you take a crash course in medieval history, it’s a fascinating period to study.
The notion of laws which apply equally to everybody within a certain geographical area is a very late development in history. Twirlip(Quote)
Twirlip says:
Read the Jewish Torah/Christian Old Testament for plenty of blood-curling accounts of the relationship between different ethnic groups the Middle East. There seems to be a pervasive belief in it that “important moral obligations could be based on common ethnicity”, as well as lots of inter-ethnic warfare. Twirlip(Quote)
Celebrim says:
“Here, I refer to loyalty to one’s own nation-state based on ties of language, culture, or ethnicity...” — emphasis added
The one is not like the other. You can learn culture. You can learn a language. You can be made a citizen. You can’t change your ethnicity.
Because you fail to distinguish between nationalism based on ethnicity from a nationalist ethic based on, well, just about anything else, your whole essay is, to be perfectly frank, bogus and marked by a lack of real consideration for what you are talking about.
I read it in it this unreflective fear of a nationalist boogey man, when really what you ought to be afraid of is racism, tribalism, and other sorts of non-cosmopolitian and xenophobic expressions. Nationalism is by no mean inherently uncosmopolitan or xenophobic. You have a really wierd view of nationalism if you think that the nationalist instinct did not arise until the 19th century, or if you believe that the nationalism of latter centuries was somehow less inclusive than the greater part of what went before. That’s a view that just doesn’t stand up to the slighest historical scrutiny.
In my nation, we are more than willing to adopt people into our culture, language, and citizenhood regardless of national origin. Sometimes we have to fight off the old excluding instincts of racism and tribalism of an older order, but by and large our nationalism is marked by a great respect for all peoples. However, that respect for all peoples does not require a great respect for all cultures, nor do I think that it should.
Finally, I should say that I personally would little a trust a person that did not love their country as I loved mine. Such a person would strike me as scary, easily manipulated, and prone to the winds of fanaticism. It doesn’t scare me that a person takes pride in there country; it very much scares me when a person feels humiliated and ashamed because of their association with their country. Such people might do anything and be persuaded to believe almost anything in order to gain a measure of self-esteem. Celebrim(Quote)
Baseballhead says:
A 1939 profile of Life Magazine noted of the young Joe Dimaggio, “Although he learned Italian first, Joe, now 24, speaks English without an accent and is otherwise well-adapted to most U.S. mores. Instead of olive oil or smelly bear grease he keeps his hair slick with water. He never reeks of garlic and prefers chicken chow mein to spaghetti.” Good to see that same ol’ racism, alive and well. In another 50 years, most of those non-ingles-speakers will be dead, and their grandchildren won’t be able to speak more than a lick of Spanish, so it’s best to get your shots in now. Baseballhead(Quote)
Ricardo says:
Twirlip, you seem to be talking past other people. I agree with you that common ethnicity or tribal or clan identity (with the latter being much more important in the past than ethnicity) was the basis for war or some sense of moral obligation to others in the past.
However, the idea that a broader ethnic identity (and that narrow more provincial loyalties based on town, region, clan or tribe should be downgraded) should be the basis for the creation of a state whose borders roughly coincide with the population distribution of the given ethnic group is what most of us are calling nationalism and that is indeed a relatively new idea. Aside from Machiavelli and a handful of other thinkers who anticipated nationalism, no one considered it particularly outrageous before the 18th century that there was no German or Italian state in Europe. Most people would have instead considered it silly that the residents of Piedmont were somehow bound to the residents of Sicily in some shared identity. Catholic Muencheners would have had little love for their Protestant neighbors with the funny accents to the north in Berlin. Countries like Belgium, Switzerland and even the UK to some extent today (think Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland and the Channel Islands) are vestiges of the earlier multinational countries. Yes, I’m sure you can find exceptions in ancient or medieval history — they are called exceptions for a reason, though. Ricardo(Quote)
catchy says:
So right wing populism is a (qualified) good, but a little mystified nationalism is playing with fire.
LIbertarianism uber alles is the only sense I can make of your postings. catchy(Quote)
Mark says:
More feel good crap. There’s family, clans, schools, cities, countries — each binding us to one another in descending degrees. To argue that this is a relic is to spit in the face of human nature and to believe in the Obamaism of “respect for all peoples”, U.N. global governance and America as evil.
Nice try! Mark(Quote)
Marian Kechlibar says:
In my view, nationalism is akin to immunity reaction. It always flares up if the collective identity of the people is threatened in some way.
Of course, orthodox libertarians will probably foam at the mouth for the words “collective identity”, probably because it can’t be defined exactly. But it exists, albeit undefinable.
It can be quite seen that the contemporary European surge of nationalism at the street-level is connected to the increasing presence of Arab and African immigrants who are perceived to be threatening to the collective identities of individual European nations. This is in contrast to other European immigrants or East Asians, who, albeit present in significant numbers, are not perceived to be threatening to the indigenous cultures.
But the ultimate meaning of nationalism is collective protection, just like with the immune system. Nations with low level of nationalism will in the long run be displaced by nations with higher levels thereof, as the latter will be willing to spend money and lives on their “collective cause”.
After the WWII, nationalism in the West got tainted by association with Nazis and racism, and so is almost a taboo today. But it is an irrational reaction in itself. As someone already mentioned, most of the people who actually fought Hitler were not motivated by the desire for global brotherhood, but by their own nationalism.
In my own family, we had 3 people killed as guerrillas in the WWII. All fought for Slovakia, none of them for the ideal of trans-national postmodern world. Marian Kechlibar(Quote)
rssg says:
This column, this debate is really intellectual masturbation, nothing more. This debate is engaged by wimps, cowards, girly-men; men who never worked in their life, never served in uniform, don’t have a long tradition of fathers and grandfathers serving in uniform, protecting our Founding Principles.
Those who don’t have any healthy patriotism for our country (like our big eared Kenyan chimp in chief), please, PLEASE emmigrate. rssg(Quote)
betw says:
Trans-nationalism (aka, world goverment, world collectivism/socialism) is deference to the elites in each country. Rule by the feminized elites — like the EU corrupt-o-crats. Trans-nationalism creates greater distance between the “government” and the “governed” (individual). The best form of goverment is having a smaller, closer relationship between the two.
The USA was founded on being a constitutional republic — not a simple democracy. The people, more accurately, the individual is sovereign. One has a right to live as one pleases without excessive intrusion by do-gooder politicians.
Now we see the whole “global warming” movement is really another attempt at centrally planned socialism by elites. The American people reject tha and that’s why Barry bin Obama will be gone in three years. He is an soft elitist, who believes in centrall planning — rule by elites. betw(Quote)
Rich Rostrom says:
Martinned: “Nationalism... is a 18th century invention. Before that time, people did not identify as members of a nation, but more likely as members of a clan, a family, or... other groups at a smaller scale. The... state or region they lived in... did not enter into people’s identity.”
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.
That was written in 1594. Rich Rostrom(Quote)
Sergey says:
No group can survive and prosper without common goal and understanding of need to make sacrifices for common good (of this group, of course). Attempts to abolish this feeling of unity and exceptionality are utopian and run against human nature, our genetic and neural hard-wireing. National states are natural (if they are not artificially created, like Belgium or Iraq) manifestations of these blood and cultural ties. Sergey(Quote)
Phelps says:
Ban fire! Phelps(Quote)
Sgt. Joe Friday says:
“Good to see that same ol’ racism, alive and well.”
Thanks a lot baseballhead. Do you even know who I am? Or that my first wife was an immigrant herself from Latin America?
The Yankee Clipper had the advantage of growing up in a time and place where (a) assimmilation was expected and encouraged, (b) and 2/3 of the new immigrants arriving in this country were not from Italy, unlike today where most immigrants come from a single ethnic-cultural-linguistic cohort.
To assume that just because the assimmilative process worked at one time, under a specific set of circumstances that it will do so again no matter how much has changed is pretty silly. Sgt. Joe Friday(Quote)
Anna Keppa says:
“Schumer would rather see poor Thai workers (who are far worse off than even the poorest American workers) lose their jobs than violate the supposed principle that an “American sport” should buy American. Only nationalistic prejudice can explain such reasoning.”
Ermmm.... how about Schumer simply pandering to American garment workers and their unions, which he relies upon for votes and financing that Thais can’t give him.
You are conflating nationalism and “vote-grubbing”. Anna Keppa(Quote)
wildbillcuster says:
The American Folk are over 400 years old, we were here before the Republic, and we will be here after it. A nation is more than just an idea, it is the blood of the people. Consider the Han;their state, The People’s Republic of China is only 60 years old, but the Han people are over 3000 years old. States come and go, but peoples endure. When I give my loyalty to America, it is not just because of the high ideals of the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution(worthy as they are), it is because the American people are MY people. It seems to me that to say that these documents define what is America, is to make them an idol to be worshiped. America is more than an idea, it is the soil of a continent, and the blood of her people. wildbillcuster(Quote)
Joel says:
So, if nationalism is a great evil then what of transnationalism? Certainly transnationalism defies the concept of local government and local democracy, concepts fundamental to the founding of America.
The excesses of nationalism have given it a stigma. By way of comparison, note that John Stuart Mill is credited with saying that war is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. Some degree of nationalism is certainly not the ugliest of things. Yet the servitude which follows democracy-debilitating transnationalism should be far worse. I’d have to side with Jonah, a little nationalism is harmless, note the World Cup. A lack of nationalism leads to political servitude. Joel(Quote)
tabacman says:
So supranationalism in all its forms good — but localized nationalism good.
like a good cake humans need a binder to hold them to a purpose. And liberty such as we have in the US and others of the western tradition need a binder that holds to those “universal” principles granted by the higher authority.
So God’s kingdom is the ultimate nationalism — and has it been worse than the more “human” deities or nations that hold certain groups together? Question to debate in the finer points but not in the major ones.
The very notion of banding together from the caveman days says that a common interest is great — but a more local and closer one is better. The US has to be the best experiment of the lot so far. When you douse nationalism altogether something will fill that void and it won’t be the peaches and cream the volokh seems to imply. It will be the uglier half of the chicken egg equation.
Great discussion tho as always! tabacman(Quote)
tabacman says:
Joel I think has the right balance — there are much worse forms of nationalism and much worse things besides it. No nation is sprung into existence in a vacuum — the context does matter — and here I think in world context the several hundred years is probably a miracle of no small measure due in some part to a bit of blood and soil nationalism. tabacman(Quote)
Scott says:
“few objected to the existence of multinational polities such as the Holy Roman Empire”
Implied in this statement is the idea that the Holy Roman Empire was less violent than modern nationalistic societies. A point that can be easily made is that the Holy Roman Empire was hampered by poor technology and simply were unable to exercise the violence we see in modern societies. Most citizens of the Holy Roman Empire never got more than 20 miles from their village, and had no clue what might be happening a hundred miles away. The limits of their technology slowed not only the weapons that make mass murder easier, but also transportation and communication that facilitate mass murder.
The Holy Roman Empire was brutal in its defense of Catholicism. The Hundred Years War was kinda sorta brutal, but it was not caused by the awakening of national pride. Nation states were the result of the Hundred Years War, not the cause. Without the unifying force of Catholicism and the unquestioned power of the Pope, people simply united with other people that spoke a common language, had similar customs, etc. It seems natural that we associate with people that sound like us, eat the same food, drink the same water, have the same customs.
Non-European societies suffered from mass murder but with no obvious nationalism. Was nationalism the reason that the Aztecs slaughtered millions of their neighbors in sacrifice and the raids to obtain victims to be sacrificed?
I think that you are a firm adherant to an evolutionary scheme for man’s development. It is interesting that the quality that most contributes to a species’s survival, agression within the species to dominate, agression directed outside of the species to survive, is always ignored in these discussions. Presumably humans got to the top of the heap by killing off their competition, either other humanoid species or threats such as the large species. Yet somehow, only a few thousand years later, there is an expectation that agression simply disappears from our genes. It is convenient to blame philosophy, religion, scarcity, whatever, for our agression, but humans are simply an agressive species.
It also ignores the fact that the Holy Roman Scott(Quote)
harmon says:
“There are many different meanings of nationalism. Here, I refer to loyalty to one’s own nation-state based on ties of language, culture, or ethnicity,”
If I understand this correctly, what you are calling “nationalism” is the misdirection of patriotism away from the country and toward the country’s government.
In religious terms, it would be analogous to idolatry, i.e., the misdirection of the love of God to some other object. I’m sure there’s some philosophical term for this kind of misdirection. Maybe it’s some kind of category error.
It should not be surprising that such an error leads to the dangers you identify. harmon(Quote)
Roach says:
This is longish response, but I think it’s spot on.
One strange development among both conservatives and libertarians today is the apparent lack of recognition by large cohorts of both groups that free societies are fragile inventions that depend on a complex web of cultural, educational, social, and economic foundations that can be undermined not only by malevolent state action but also by short-sighted private actions and even, in some cases, state inaction like the late American embrace of the false freedom of “open borders.” It is this ideological thinking that leads someone like Bush to think we can easily export American institutions to Iraq, just as it is this same reductionist thinking that renders many libertarians indifferent to our de facto colonization by emigrants from very illiberal parts of the Third World. Any recognition of these groups’ tendencies would risk a departure from individualism, and most libertarian thinking today is deontological and deductive: the rules are simple and applied without regard for outcomes or local conditions.
John Stuart Mill, the godfather of a practical “utilitarian” approach to liberal thinking in the 19th Century, shows below that even the most disagreeable liberals from yesteryear were more nuanced and generally more interesting than their half-educated progeny today. He also notes, to his credit, that national unity is a key condition for viable, free representative governments. Mill writes in his essay “On Representative Government”:
Of Nationality, as connected with Representative Government.
A PORTION of mankind may be said to constitute a Nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others — which make them co-operate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively. This feeling of nationality may have been generated by various causes. Sometimes it is the effect of identity of race and descent. Community of language, and community of religion, greatly contribute to it. Geographical limits are one of its causes. But the strongest of all is identity of political antecedents; the possession of a national history, and consequent community of recollections; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past. . . .
Where the sentiment of nationality exists in any force, there is a prima facie case for uniting all the members of the nationality under the same government, and a government to themselves apart. This is merely saying that the question of government ought to be decided by the governed. One hardly knows what any division of the human race should be free to do if not to determine with which of the various collective bodies of human beings they choose to associate themselves.
But, when a people are ripe for free institutions, there is a still more vital consideration. Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist. The influences which form opinions and decide political acts are different in the different sections of the country. An altogether different set of leaders have the confidence of one part of the country and of another. The same books, newspapers, pamphlets, speeches, do not reach them. One section does not know what opinions, or what instigations, are circulating in another. The same incidents, the same acts, the same system of government, affect them in different ways; and each fears more injury to itself from the other nationalities than from the common arbiter, the state. Their mutual antipathies are generally much stronger than jealousy of the government. That any one of them feels aggrieved by the policy of the common ruler is sufficient to determine another to support that policy. Even if all are aggrieved, none feel that they can rely on the others for fidelity in a joint resistance; the strength of none is sufficient to resist alone, and each may reasonably think that it consults its own advantage most by bidding for the favour of the government against the rest. Above all, the grand and only effectual security in the last resort against the despotism of the government is in that case wanting: the sympathy of the army with the people. The military are the part of every community in whom, from the nature of the case, the distinction between their fellow-countrymen and foreigners is the deepest and strongest. To the rest of the people foreigners are merely strangers; to the soldier, they are men against whom he may be called, at a week’s notice, to fight for life or death. The difference to him is that between friends and foes — we may almost say between fellow-men and another kind of animals: for as respects the enemy, the only law is that of force, and the only mitigation the same as in the case of other animals — that of simple humanity. Soldiers to whose feelings half or three-fourths of the subjects of the same government are foreigners will have no more scruple in mowing them down, and no more desire to ask the reason why, than they would have in doing the same thing against declared enemies. An army composed of various nationalities has no other patriotism than devotion to the flag. Such armies have been the executioners of liberty through the whole duration of modern history. The sole bond which holds them together is their officers and the government which they serve; and their only idea, if they have any, of public duty is obedience to orders. A government thus supported, by keeping its Hungarian regiments in Italy and its Italian in Hungary, can long continue to rule in both places with the iron rod of foreign conquerors.
Even the most die-hard libertarian should recognize that the pressures unleashed by a multicultural community–a community deliberately created by the mass, Third World immigration scheme unleashed in the 1965 Immigration Reform Act–undermine the achievement of the very goals that libertarians purport to value, such as limited government, prosperity, religious freedom, and individual chice.
As the late Samuel Huntington so astutely observed, there is, as in all things, a horizon (demographic in this case) within which we can have widely varying liberties, customs, and habits, but outside of which the reality of conflicting human loyalties would be the more dominant element, dominant even over long-established legal institutions and habits. Whether we are looking at something like the decline of South Africa, the LA Riots, the corruption-ridden ethnic politics of Chicago, India or Yugoslavia’s ethnic conflicts, or the racial conflicts of America’s own Deep South and inner cities, the more “diverse” parts of America are generally less free and less traditionally American in habit and values than the more homogeneous alternatives. Roach(Quote)
Roach says:
I should also add that what masquerade as “universal” principles sometimes are advanced selectively and work to the interest of some groups–typically minorities scared of particularist expressions of identity or values–than others. But why should this be the least bit persuasive to us, the majority, who want to live in a nationalist community, do not want our interests ground down into nothingness by itinerant, cosmopolitan, and unpatriotic types who are far more concerned with their abstractions than a particular people with a particular community of interest and identity and history. It’s not like Israel will be electing an Arab or Vietnamese or Christian P.M. anytime soon to show its universalist bona fides, and nor should it, but neither should we feel embarassed about our nationalism because some nationalists in some places have taken it too far. So have universalists, and we reap their fruits every day with our broken borders, Major Nidal Hasans, and unpatriotic minority presidents. Roach(Quote)
Kalroy says:
I think the basic premise is flawed. Fascism and Nazism were (Not), of course, extreme forms of nationalism. They were forms of socialism that used nationalism as a binding and rallying point. The Soviet Union used “workers of the world” Germany used the Aryan race, and Italy used Italy.
At the same time Nationalism in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries failed to achieve similar evil, though other socialist countries have all made their way there depending on the degree of socialism that they adopted.
Kalroy Kalroy(Quote)
Bruce Graeme says:
It is a well-known criticism that libertarians ignore the collective/social dimension of reality which is the opposite pole of the individual dimension.
However, in his article “The Vital Importance of Separation” (in the April 1994 issue of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report), Murray Rothbard warned that “Beyond a small quantity, national heterogeneity simply does not work; the nation disintegrates into more than one nation, and the need for separation becomes acute.” And, in the same vein, in his 1993 essay, “Nations by Consent,” he advised to “proceed with the decomposition and decentralization of the modern centralizing and coercive nation-state, deconstructing that state into constituent nationalities and neighborhoods”, so that “we shall at one and the same time reduce the scope of government power, the scope and importance of voting and the extent of social conflict.”
According to Ayn Rand, a ‘nation’ is a large number of individuals who live in the same geographical locality under the same political system. Capitalism protects individual rights and, rights derive from our nature as rational human beings. Miss Rand describes a right as “a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.” Social context!
Or take this: “Rights provide guidance in a social setting (...) A Government is an institution that has legal monopoly on the use of force in a given geographic region. (..) protecting the citizens of a country.” (objectivist Brian P. Simpson in his book Markets don’t fail).
Social setting, citizens of a country, a given geographic region.... Does this not mean that the individual by himself, is not a mere atom in a humanity broken down into its separate cells; that men are not disembodied and denationalized intelligences, operating without relation either to their forebears or their posterity? In this sense, a ‘nation’ is a homogeneous group of men who have joined themselves in a distinct entity on the basis of fundamental and shared treats.
In his book, “In Defence of the Realm: The Place of Nations in Classical Liberalism,” David Conway denies that nationalism and liberalism are mutually incompatible. He argues for the perfect compatibility between the equal moral standing of all human beings and their enjoying particularistic nationalistic attachments and affiliations!
Gustave de Molinari (radical laissez-faire ultra of the French Liberal School) also defended “The Free Constitution of Nationality.” He wrote: “internal troubles, caused by differences of race, custom, and language (...) will disappear when a community of interest and action, founded on a common choice of, and common love for, a fatherland freely chosen, is established as the sole and sufficient basis of nationality.” (“The Society of Tomorrow”, 1899)
As stated by Edwin van de Haar (“Classical Liberalism and International Relations Theory” ), the classical liberal view on human nature is supported by research in the fields of evolutionary biology and neuroscience, which point out that struggle, competition, the protection of honour, and tribal and ethnic conflict remain crucial elements in explaining both individual and group behaviour!
Sir Arthur Keith provided an insightful explanation of this with the publication of his 1946 book, “Evolution and Ethics.” He argued: “If mankind existed for the sole purpose of producing knowledge or wealth and prosperity, then clearly Universalism is a most desirable goal to aim at. But nations exist for another and less material purpose; they are subject to the compelling law of evolution.(....) Nations are units which the law of evolution has brought into being to fulfill an evolutionary purpose.(....) ” If we desire all national and racial frontiers to be broken down, and humanity to be united into one vast world state, then we shall count the submergence of one people in another as beneficial or good; but if we desire a world studded with free and independent nations, engaged in friendly and peaceful rivalry, then we shall regard the interminglings of peoples, whether by conquest or by peaceful penetration, as prejudicial or evil. I hold that, if mankind is to be vigorous in mind and progressive in spirit, its division into nation and races must be maintained!”
Regarding immigration, here is a critical statement by Ludwig von Mises: “In the absence of any migration barriers whatsoever, vast hordes of immigrants from the comparatively overpopulated areas of Europe would, it is maintained, inundate Australia and America. They would come in such great numbers that it would no longer be possible to count on their assimilation. If in the past immigrants to America soon adopted the English language and American ways and customs, this was in part due to the fact that they did not come over all at once in such great numbers. The small groups of immigrants who distributed themselves over a wide land quickly integrated themselves into the great body of the American people. The individual immigrant was already half assimilated when the next immigrants landed on American soil. One of the most important reasons for this rapid national assimilation was the fact that the immigrants from foreign countries did not come in too great numbers. This, it is believed, would now change, and there is real danger that the ascendancy-or more correctly, the exclusive dominion-of the Anglo-Saxons in the United States would be destroyed. This is especially to be feared in the case of heavy immigration on the part of the Mongolian peoples of Asia.” (“Liberalism in the Classical Tradition”)
Recently, in his book “A Nation of Immigrants?”, David Conway toke issue with those who are still minimising the threat posed by mass immigration by claiming that this is nothing new. Bruce Graeme(Quote)
Bruce Graeme says:
“Die Arbeiterklasse tritt ein für Frieden und Völkerverständigung, für Gleichberechtigung und nationale Selbstbestimmung aller Völker, für die Souveränität aller Staaten. Sie erkennt die wahren nationalen Interessen des eigenen Volkes, die andere sind als die des “bürgerlichen” Nationalismus, der die Interessen der herrschenden Klasse mit denjenigen der Nation identifiziert.” (Lenin, “Ursprünglicher Entwurf der Thesen zur nationalen und kolonialen Frage”, 1920, in AW Bd. II,
“Kautsky arrived at the conclusion that Otto Bauer “underestimates the strength of the urge towards a national state” (p. 23 of the pamphlet).” (...) To this we must add Kautsky’s still more precise concluding remark that states of mixed national composition (known as multi national states, as distinct from national states) are “always those whose internal constitution has for some reason or other remained abnormal or underdeveloped” (backward) — Lenin The Right of Nations to Self-Determination [ Collected Works Vol. 20 p. 395
The old Economists, who made a caricature of Marxism, told the workers that “only the economic” was of importance to Marxists. The new Economists seem to think either that the democratic state of victorious socialism will exist without frontiers (like a “complex of sensations” without matter) or that frontiers will be delineated “only” in accordance with the needs of production. In actual fact its frontiers will be delineated democratically, i.e., in accordance with the will and “sympathies” of the population.” — Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 324
“Socialism cannot be reduced to economics alone. A foundation — socialist production — is essential for the abolition of national oppression, but this foundation must also carry a democratically organised state, a democratic army, etc. By transforming capitalism into socialism the proletariat creates the possibility of abolishing national oppression; the possibility becomes reality “only”-“only”!-with the establishment of full democracy in all spheres, including the delineation of state frontiers in accordance with the “sympathies” of the population, including complete freedom to secede. And this, in turn, will serve as a basis for developing the practical elimination of even the slightest national friction and the least national mistrust, for an accelerated drawing together and fusion of nations that will be completed when the state withers away. — Lenin, Collected Works, Vol 22, p. 325 Bruce Graeme(Quote)
Bruce Graeme says:
In his book “The Culture of Critique”, Kevin MacDonald devotes many pages to an analysis of “The Authoritarian Personality”, which was written by Adorno. It was part of a series called “Studies in Prejudice,” produced by the Frankfurt school, which included titles like “Anti-Semitism and Emotional Disorder.”
In addition to ridiculing patriotism and racial identity, the book’s purpose was to make every group affiliation sound as if it were a sign of mental disorder and defective “authoritarian personality.” All group loyalties, not only to nation and race, but even close family ties are “prejudice.”
It is precisely the kind of group loyalty, respect for tradition, and consciousness of differences central to Jewish identity(!) that was described as mental illness in gentiles. As Prof. MacDonald explains, the Frankfurt school never criticized or even described Jewish group identity – only that of gentiles: “behavior that is critical to Judaism as a successful group evolutionary strategy is conceptualized as pathological in gentiles.”
As Christopher Lasch has written, the book leads to the conclusion that prejudice “could be eradicated only by subjecting the American people to what amounted to collective psychotherapy – by treating them as inmates of an insane asylum.”
“Viewed at its most abstract level, a fundamental agenda is thus to influence the European-derived peoples of the United States to view concern about their own demographic and cultural eclipse as irrational and as an indication of psychopathology.”
In the same vein, the French-Jewish “deconstructionist” Jacques Derrida wrote:
“The idea behind deconstruction is to deconstruct the workings of strong nation-states with powerful immigration policies, to deconstruct the rhetoric of nationalism, the politics of place, the metaphysics of native land and native tongue... The idea is to disarm the bombs... of identity that nation-states build to defend themselves against the stranger, against Jews and Arabs and immigrants...”
Needless to say, this project has been successful; anyone opposed to the displacement of whites is routinely treated as a mentally unhinged “hate-monger,” and whenever whites defend their group interests they are described as psychologically inadequate. The irony has not escaped Kevin MacDonald: “The ideology that ethnocentrism was a form of psychopathology was promulgated by a group that over its long history had arguably been the most ethnocentric group among all the cultures of the world.” Bruce Graeme(Quote)
Bruce Graeme says:
Not All libertarians!
In his essay BIG-GOVERNMENT LIBERTARIANS, Rothbard says that “In strict logic, libertarian political doctrine can be severed from all other considerations; logically one can be – and indeed most libertarians in fact are: hedonists, libertines, immoralists, (...) one can be a consistent devotee of property rights politically and be a moocher, a scamster, and a petty crook and racketeer in practice, as all too many libertarians turn out to be. Strictly logically, one can do these things, but psychologically, sociologically, and in practice, it simply doesn’t work that way.” He also scorns libertarians who “join the ACLU in protecting the alleged “right of free expression” of bums and beggars on the streets of our big cities, no matter how annoying or intimidating...”.
In the same vein, Rothbard could haved added that in strict logic the libertarian position is to support open borders, but that “in practice, it simply doesn’t work that way.” And in fact his alliance with paleo-conservatives in the 90s (such as Samuel Francis), not only implies his criticisms of the “lumpen”-libertarians who didn’t want to work and only wanted to take drugs and have sex, but also implies his opposition for open borders — as is evident from his statement in which he deplores the left-libertarians’ “uncritical and unlimited devotion to open borders” and, he continues: “as in the case of most left liberals and all neocons, any proposal for any reason to restrict immigration or even to curb the flow of illegals, is automatically and hysterically denounced as racist, fascist, sexist, heterosexist, xenophobic, and the rest of the panoply of smear terms that lie close to hand.”
He also criticizes what he calls “high libertarian theory”(*), in which it is claimed that “only the individual is sovereign and not the nation.”
As a matter of fact Rothbard views populism with great sympathy (cf. an essay Rothbard wrote for the January 1992 Rothbard-Rockwell Report, titled Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement.) and condemns the “libertarian anxiety never to be connected with or labeled as a conservative or a right-wing movement.” http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch16.html
(*) an example of this, is a recent statement by Frank van Dun:
“Ten years ago, John Hospers (“A Libertarian Argument Against Open Borders”, p.153–165 in the JLS symposium referred to in note 2) challenged opponents with the question “What are we supposed to do in the meantime [before we have got rid of the welfare state]?”—as if “In the meantime, stick to your principles!” could not be considered a sensible answer.”
http://users.ugent.be/~frvandun/Texts/Articles/LibertarianCaseAgainstImmigration.pdf Bruce Graeme(Quote)
Sully says:
Ryan Waxx — you wrote “neither did Einstein let nationalism bind him to build the bomb for Hitler.”
Perhaps you should do a little reading on Einstein’s choices in the matter. Hitler was eager for Einstein’s participation in a project, so to speak; but it wasn’t a bomb project.
As to Einstein’s naive political views this quote from Richard Feynman is on point.
“I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.” Sully(Quote)
Mitchell Young says:
The BJP is the Hindu Nationalist Party. It led the liberalization that did wonders for the Indian economy, but did it with a nationalist goal in mind. Does anyone here seriously think the Chinese leadership, despite economic liberalization, is not devoted to the benefit of the Han people? The German Zoll-Verein was a nationalist proposition, to align the German cultural and economic spheres — it eventually led to the formation of modern Germany. Hamilton and later the Clay’s American system aligned the cultural grouping that was the United States (read Federalist 2 — Dangers Concerning Foreign Influence!) with a sphere of economic activity. US Nationalism might make Thai workers worse off — but it is demonstrably true that individual states whose elites abandon the national principle either decline or fail to develop. Think of the free-trade besotted United Kingdom, and the long term steady fall in its standard of living.
This is all a bit mute, however. As Ernest Gellner pointed out long ago, nationalism is modernity, you can’t have a modern state — and therefore a modern economy, for state modernization always precedes economic modernization — without nationalism. Mitchell Young(Quote)
Christopher Haynes says:
Professor Somin, I completely agree. I have been writing about this for years (eg. http://www.scribd.com/doc/16005551/Individualism-the-Reappearing-Ideal). Though you are of course right that nationalism is a modern phenomenon, I think tribalism may be deeply ingrained. But so what? It just means we need to work harder to overcome it, and show others why they should do the same. Thank you for your great contribution. Christopher Haynes(Quote)
Bruce Graeme says:
Libertarians are so busy celebrating “the individual” that they give little or no attention to a phenomenon which is at least as important as individuals on the political landscape, namely, groups. It is true, of course, that groups can be regarded as collections of individuals, but it would be foolish to try to discuss politics purely on the basis of the behavior of individuals and without reference to groups, just as it would be foolish to try to describe the operation of a computer purely on the basis of the behavior of individual molecules and without reference to such important molecular groups as chips, wires, cards and hard disks.
In a way, libertarianism’s greatest success is in dealing with a very important group — government — by pointing out that social happiness is generally proportional to the extent to which the government keeps its nose out of the business of the citizens. But libertarians virtually ignore the political impact of all other groups, and in particular have failed to heed Lord Acton’s injunction that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. And altho I am certainly no fan of the Left, it is clear that the Left has a far better grip on reality than the libertarians with respect to Acton’s observation, since the Left long ago recognized the danger which corporations pose to the body politic.
So what then are the groups on the political landscape which libertarians ignore? They include groups with a financial interest in politics (corporations, labor unions), groups with a racial, ethnic, sexual or similar interest (blacks, Jews, homosexuals) and those with other specialized interests (gun control, gun rights, anti-censorship, anti-porn, medical freedom, etc). Such groups are not limited to lobbying organizations, but include any type of organization that has political clout.
Actually, it is not quite right to say that libertarians ignore these groups, since libertarians probably do direct mail solicitations to many of them. But what libertarians fail to appreciate is that it makes far more sense to view the political game as having these groups as the players, rather than the vaunted “individual” with which libertarians are so enamored. The problem, however, is not just that libertarians organize their political perceptions poorly. Rather it is that their focus on the individual keeps them from seeing how the political process works, and thus prevents them from being an effective part of it, and in addition has caused them to embrace propositions which directly contradict basic libertarian principles.
To explain, we begin by noting that the essence of the American political process — at least as it involves legislative activity — is not what the Founders conceived it to be (and what most libertarians seem to think it is), namely, the reflective consideration of what constitutes the greatest good for the greatest number. Instead, the political process may be summarized in one simple phrase: paying off the (few very wealthy) individuals who supply substantial money and the constituencies who supply both substantial money and substantial votes. And who are the constituencies? Very simply, they are the groups which libertarians ignore, and which constitute the major players in the political process. And what is more, such groups are the driving forces behind the types of legislation that libertarians hate: Welfare is driven by the black block vote; the largest recipient of foreign aid is Israel, driven by the notoriously-powerful Israeli lobby; laws hindering business are driven by labor unions; dumbed-down federalized education is driven by teachers’ unions; restrictions on alternative medicine are driven by medical organizations and drug manufacturers; affirmative action is driven by large companies seeking to hurt their smaller competition for whom such programs are a greater proportional burden; drug laws are driven by anti-freedom groups and the enforcement bureaucracies, and so on.
But even more important than the libertarian blind spot on groups is the fact mentioned above that ignoring groups has caused libertarians to violate fundamental libertarian principles. To explain, we note that libertarians are enthusiastic advocates of private property, and apparently have no objection to multiple-owner property such as condominiums or stockholder-owned corporations. So logically it would seem they would agree with the notion that countries are owned by their citizens, and may rightfully be defended by force from invaders and other trespassers. And yet we hear no end of libertarians who sing the praises of “open borders” and unlimited immigration.
Which, to put it kindly, is illogical. And also insane.
The insanity springs from what in philosophy is known as reductionism, ie, the belief that the whole is just the simple sum of its parts. The reductionist, then, holds that a country is just a bunch of disconnected individuals, hopefully libertarians.
But this is foolish. A country is not a disconnected bunch of individuals, no matter how much libertarians think they are disconnected from everything except the Internet. It is a group of people who share a language and culture, with the result that their values are similar, and their desire to live together in the same geographic location is considerable. In Sir Walter Scott’s words:
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said
“This is my own, my native land”?
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned
As homeward his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there be, go mark him well:
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High tho his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power and pelf,
The wretch concentered all in self;
Living, shall forfeit fair renown
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored and unsung.
Love of country, like love of one’s mate or one’s family, is often not well-perceived until separation. But it is real and palpable, and it has driven men since the dawn of time, as it drives them today. So for that overeducated clique of highbrow deep-thinkers known as libertarians to simply toss this emotion into the intellectual wastebasket as if it were somehow irrelevant to social order is fatuity raised to the nth degree.
Love of country, like love of family, depends on one element more than any other: likeness. One’s countrymen are like oneself in language and culture, just as one’s family is like oneself in genetic relationship. In fact, this notion is so basic as to be rooted in our very language, and not just once, but twice: We like those whom we are like, and we are kind to those of our own kind.
And one of those elements of likeness is race. It is not the only likeness — language and culture are also likenesses — and it may not be crucial in all cases to regarding someone as one’s countryman, but it is clearly important.
So what, then, is going to happen to a country which allows open borders (particularly coupled with the temptation of such freebies as welfare and Social Security), whose president celebrates the end of history for the white majority, and where the cult of multiculturalism is rammed down employers’ throats and slipped quietly into the minds of youngsters by the New World Orderlies of the Education Establishment? What will happen is very simple: The country, along with its culture and language, and probably its race, is going to dissolve.
And that, as it turns out, does not bode well for libertarians. This is because America, more than any other place on earth, has nourished the idea of individual liberty and brought it to fruition. The culture of America is the culture of liberty. But liberty-loving libertarians seem indifferent to throwing all that away. They are so enamored with corporate profits and so indifferent to the culture which has emerged from the coordinated efforts of the white European race that they are quite happy to flush the American nation down the toilet by allowing swarms of Turd– worlders to intermingle with, and eventually replace, the core American population. And even worse, sending the American nation down the tubes may in the long run turn out not to be as profitable as believed by the calculating Economic Man which libertarians have reduced human beings to; for shipping jobs overseas when American workers are too “inefficient” means the loss of an industrial base and the skills of workers who are employed in that industrial base, a situation which leaves the nation vulnerable in times of war when “free trade” is only a memory. Yes, it is perfectly true that this may result in higher prices for labor, and thus for consumer goods, but pricey goods are a small price to pay for priceless culture. Or to put the matter another way, Do libertarians really want to sell their freedom for a filthy mess of Turd-world free-trade pottage?
Part of the open-borders/free-trade problem is that libertarians recognize that, without the temptation of government handouts, immigrants who come here would be those who want to work, and would therefore — at least from an economic standpoint — be good for the country. But this fact still doesn’t change the culture argument against open borders, or the reality of immigration as it is now going on. Nor does it change the fact that, if the lower-status jobs which immigrants usually take cannot be filled, this will generate pressure for mechanization and automation which will have a long-term beneficial economic effect.
We spoke earlier about the libertarian blind spot about race, and it is only fair to mention that this blind spot is partly the result of the desire on the part of libertarians to be regarded as “tolerant”. And while we may acknowledge this as a nobly-intentioned sentiment, the ugly fact is that we are all racists. We are racists because evolution has made it instinctive for every living thing to love its own kind — and what is racism but the love of one’s own kind? How fatuous it is to think that we are morally obligated to toss out the product of a billion years of evolution in order to keep from being guilty of a sin which was regarded as a virtue till only yesterday!
The reason evolution has made racism instinctive is that group membership helps the individual to survive. Groups give the individual members protection against other rival groups — and if you don’t believe it, just arrange for a sojurn in one of our multicultural prisons. So for libertarians to ignore man’s racial nature — to say nothing of the fact that the notion of individual liberty is a product of white European culture — is both unscientific and — if I may say so — suicidal.
In conclusion, if libertarians are realistic enuf to admit — and indeed to celebrate — man’s selfish nature, isn’t it time that they admitted and celebrated his racial nature as well? Or maybe all they need to do is realize that an interest in their race is really a selfish interest.
http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Lbtn/Lbtn-LibertBlindSpot.html Bruce Graeme(Quote)
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