Reimagining the Nation-State

Of course there are countries. There are, in fact, 195 of them (all but two recognized by the United Nations), each with its own flag, border, and sovereignty. We all know that. Questioning the notion of a nation-state is akin to challenging the laws of gravity.

But question it we will. Or, at least, we will discuss, qualify, and reimagine the idea of a nation-state with the help of two articles. The first (The Attack Of The Civilization-State) might be summarized by this one whispered Asian truth, "Always remember that China is a civilization rather than a nation-state."

And so it is with another Asian civilization-state, this one the parliamentary democratic republic of India. Prime Minister Modi’s victory arose, in part, by convincing voters to reject the very idea of a nation-state, which he characterized as an invention of the West. Any tolerance for a philosophy that embraces Western-style alternative political systems, you see, itself represents an underlying contempt for the Hindu civilization-state. Long live the civilization-state, the alternative to the West.

So, the point is that “we” might be a bit presumptuous in thinking our concept of the nation-state is consistent with, or shared by, two civilization-states with a combined population eight times ours.

The second article is a review of the recently-published Human History Gets a Rewrite that upends certain bedrock assumptions behind the arrival of the nation-state with its featured central authority. You may flinch. The authors maintain that the anthropological evidence largely contradicts the conventional account of human social history i.e. a linear progression from small egalitarian bands, to slowly-organizing hunter-gathers, to agricultural-based tribes, to emerging cities, civilization, kingdoms and empires (with wealth hierarchies), through science, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution, to the modern bureaucratic state.

Maybe not. The anthropological evidence points to an historical rewrite. Human beings are not passive actors, never have been. Hunter-gatherers managed rather complex societies. They made conscious, deliberate, collective choices about how to organize e.g. apportion work, dispose of wealth, distribute power, in short, practice politics. They didn’t need Athens to teach them democratic principles.

Early cities emerged without the need for centralized administration. Popular councils and citizen assemblies governed. There were compelling instances of societal flexibility e.g. the cited Teotihuacan, a Mesoamerican city that rivaled contemporary imperial Rome in terms of size and magnificence, having started to slide towards authoritarianism only then to abruptly change course to become consummate egalitarian.

The whole point of the above-two articles is to provide us the latitude to think “outside the box” (er, border) about our own nation-state. Regard as a thought experiment the question of how ours might adapt to this rapidly-changing world. Take crypto, for instance, which respects no borders. How does a nation-state operate in which your hat is your home. In fact, money itself becomes untethered, something we addressed in MM (10/15/21) Shadow banking and the Eurodollar. Same with the corporation with its primary duty to the bottom line, not to any nation-state. Even citizens have been known to move, declare personal sovereignty, and thereby renounce fiscal responsibility (catch me if you can). How then to feed the state beast?

Consider that in the context of the nation-state’s increasingly porous physical borders adding to the growing state demands, quite tangible and urgent, as they vastly outrun what’s becoming a more virtual means of support. The entire notion of a nation-state begins to blur into a kind of fictive construct, like money, maybe like religion.

Highland member Roger Briggs has thought a lot about the trajectory of humanity in his recently-published Emerging World: The Evolution of Consciousness and the Future of Humanity. When the time is right, we look forward to discussing Roger’s perspective which goes far beyond the nation-state, even beyond the civilization-state, as he envisions a planetary-state consciousness.