It's that kind of supranationalist thinking that led in the 90s to trade agreements that have sent a lot of lefties into a sudden nationalist tizzy. Even though it's ostensibly the right wing that wants to eliminate the EU and close our borders, a surprising number of people on the left are clamoring for similar changes.
Nationalism sucks; it gives us border clashes and independist wars. It's not a natural construct; in many cases, "nation" is held together by a strongman dictator; remove the dictator, and the nation flies to pieces. Nationalism is the reason I cringe when I hear Trump spout the old anti-Semitic "America First" line, or when I hear references to American exceptionalism. We fly a flag at our house to counter the nasty elements of nationalism that popped up in the flying of flags post 9/11. I like America, but it's an America of my own construct, not the one you all impose on me.
If the pendulum toward free trade is now moving back in the other direction, we can expect what we've seen this year: nativism, sabre-rattling by white supremacists, reduction of political freedoms.
The problem I didn't foresee with free trade was that it meant corporate world domination. The one world we got wasn't an end-of-days Narnia run by a free population of diverse but loving human beings. It was a worldwide dominion controlled by a few monopolies, with the "common good" way, way down on the list of priorities. There is not a chance that such a ruling structure would address income inequality, climate change, or peace.
If the pendulum toward free trade is now moving back in the other direction, we can expect what we've seen this year: nativism, sabre-rattling by white supremacists, reduction of political freedoms.
So what now? We retreat to within our borders and make widgets no one wants as a means of achieving full employment? We hoard our own water while the rest of the world burns? We stop educating and feeding the world? We wall everyone out, deny our own diversity, and pretend we are the Aryans of de Gobineau's fantasies?
1 comment:
I don't think nationalism in the sense of jingoism is the root of opposition to supranational trade agreements/organizations. Rather it's the loss of sovereignty that grates, in that state and even national political action can be overruled by the supranational entity outside the control of the political apparatus that's available to the ordinary citizen. By taking control of the supranational entities, the 1% gain the ability to dictate terms and conditions via an instrument that ordinary citizens have no way to even influence, let alone control. In this way, state and even national laws regarding workplace conditions or environmental requirements, for instance, can be overruled and disallowed, which disempowers ordinary citizens. Hence their resistance to the idea.
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