Nationalism and Global Capitalism

Capitalism exists and affects life everywhere across the globe. Even in those countries where capitalism, and its strongman liberal-democracy, are not king, there is still the ever-present threat of 'liberation' by the forces of Capital that shapes the way the people of those countries live and think. But capitalism does not only affect nations on a large-scale, but it also greatly affects the individual. Individuals in capitalist countries often find their personal identity broken into chunks, as if they are individual characteristics comprising a whole person. They are broken down into labels, groups, marketable demographics. Not only this, but various aspects of one's identity simply cannot exist under Capitalism, and are done away with. The capitalist system deems them in opposition to the present state of affair, and liquidates them without hesitation.

Religion, a major part of a person's identity, is one of the biggest victims. Pastors now speak to stadiums full of people, owning mansions and private jets, and encouraging people to send in money so they will be rewarded for their faith. Bookstores are often filled with novels of personal religious experiences for sale for profit, while mass-produced decorative crosses and signs and other similar goods stock shelves of crafts stores. For many people, their religious life is seen in a somewhat transactional sense. They go to church so they're a Christian. They give money to church so they're a good Christian. They buy and read Christian stories so they're a very good Christian. Less mainstream interpretations of the Bible and Scripture in its clear anti-materialist senses are seen as heresy, eisegesis, and so on. The Bible's condemnations of the rich and wealthy and love of possessions are brushed away under "all things are possible through Christ" or mere condemnations of excess and decadence.

Ideology itself serves as another example. People express being a Republican by buying Republican merchandise, banners and flags, and other commodities. Someone may express being a socialist through a bumper sticker or a Che Guevara fridge magnet. One of the most common ways to show support for a candidate is through political campaign donations. Ideology is reduced to an expression through the consumption of goods.

Even those who seek alternatives to capitalist consumption are still somehow roped into the system. Second-hand clothes aren't just passed around, but sold a secondhand shop. Those who give are able to write off donations on their taxes. Meanwhile the executives who own some larger chains like Goodwill can have salaries well in the millions, paying some of their workers less than a dollar an hour. Machines will give instant cash payouts for phones. Repairing electronics is often less about 'what's better for the environment' and more 'is repairing it cheap enough to justify not just buying a new phone' and so on. Trying to avoid buying new products simply turns into consuming commodities through a different outlet, giving the illusion of separation.

Even anti-capitlism itself is commodified. Previously mentioned were the Che Guevara magnets. Similarly, Punk and Hippie subcultures have been reduced to how you decorate your room, what clothes you buy, and what music you listen to, rather than legitimate calls to action and motions for change. The militant aspects of counterculture are de-emphasized, while the consumptive aspects are highlighted.

Sex is as well commodified. Not only in the literal sense of prostitution and whatnot, but in an abstract, used as a commodity-vessel. There's the common idea that sex sells. Genuinely observe advertisements, billboards, and so on. How much of the marketing focuses on the sex appeal of the user, even vague eroticism focused around the consumption of items. Sex is a huge component of human psychology, so marketing items through a sexual lens is a natural innovation.

Gender itself is also commodified or, if it proves an obstacle to capitalism, neutralized. Traditionally, men would do much of the heavy labor and thereby dominated much of industry. Men would also predominantly fight wars. Meanwhile, women were relegated to mere housework. This was the more 'traditional', pre-capitalist social organization. But the recent drive of capitalism to aggressively expand to new markets has necessitated a stronger military to crack those markets open, so women were allowed in the armed forces. Women's labor at home didn't generate any profit for the shareholder; a woman's labor and the produce thereof was her own. With industrialization becoming widespread, soon came women entering the workforce. Women would labor and toil in coal pits alongside their husbands, creating profits for owners. The traditional gender roles were removed, and women were turned into exploited workers alongside their husbands. This has been hailed as progress, exchanging the chains of a husband for the chains of an indifferent employer. Still a slave, still owned, but now with purchasing power of their own to consume commodities to express their identity.

Expression of gender identity is another commodified characteristic. There are traditionally masculine and feminine commodities, sure, but some new commodities are oriented towards people explicitly as means of expressing their gender identity. Men are largely a target of this. Items often feature a 'masculine' appearance. Dude Wipes, Duke Cannon Soap, Black Rifle Coffee, Manscaped, and so on. Items marketed towards a specific expression of one's gender identity. Gender, that is gender expression, itself is dissolved. With women in the workforce, house-husbands becoming more common, and the general decline in firm gender roles, gender as a concept is becoming redundant and obsolete. Sex, the biological fact, remains, but various gender expressions are now emerging amongst people, expressions that depart from traditional gender expressions. Ultimately, these are just explosions of expression from the destruction of the gender binary by capitalism, death rattles of a dying mechanism, and will disappear over time. Soon, there will no longer be agender, bigender, masculine, feminine, and other types of gender identity. Gender will have no distinguishing capability between people and thus will cease to exist as a concept people hold on to. Even as the gender binary seems to be collapsing, the previously mentioned commodities to affirm gender expression and qualities still exist, yet these products are somewhat reactionary and so will not be lasting fixtures of economy, simply capitalizing on the death of gender. The people who buy Duke Cannon bourbon-scented soap are those who observe the collapse of the gender binary and despair. Seeking to reaffirm their gender expression, they turn to commodities, those being one of the only ways they know to express themselves and thus affirm their identity. They cannot express themselves of themselves, and instead must seek affirmation through consumption.

One of the most important forms of identity is nationality. When people are asked what they are, they oftentimes point firstly to their nation. I am a German, I am a Dutchman, I am a South African, and so on. But what is nationality? Boiled down, it is comprised of various elements of personal identity shared between a group of people and maintained through social pressure. Things like dress, mannerisms, language, religion, and cuisine. All these make up a nation and its culture. Nation is not to be confused with state -- many states are nation-states, a state comprised near entirely of one nation of people. Nation is also not to be confused with ethnicity, they often overlap but are not necessarily the same thing. An ethnically French person's national identity is totally different from a Gaul's, yet they inhabit the same region and the same general ethnicity.

Nationality is nothing more than a combination of various individual characteristics and preferences, enforced by social pressure from a group. However, given capitalism's effect on individual characteristics, the inherent concept of a person's nationality is being undermined, weakening the longer that markets are left to develop. The topics of religion and gender roles have already been covered, but there are the other factors as well. Firstly, language. One of the foremost characteristics of a national identity is a language. Yet for many people across the world, language is becoming more flexible. English is the single most common language in the world, but the majority of them are not native speakers. Instead, many of them learn English through American cultural exports. American films, American television, American novels, and so on. As well as this, much of international commerce uses English as the primary language for documentation, and English is used as the international maritime language. In an especially modern context, English has become such a common language due to the internet. People who are connected online often have no choice but to learn English. More predominant forms of media, such as YouTube and TikTok, are largely populated by Americans, leading to even more acceleration of English as a common language.

As well as language, cuisine follows a similar trend. Local regions develop their own dishes and cuisines and tastes based on what naturally grows in that region. But with global supply chains, refrigeration, and other innovations, it is no longer strictly necessary that someone must only eat their local foods and thereby be accustomed to only their local cuisine. It is common to see Chinese-style food in America, and American restaurants such as Domino's and McDonald's in places like Russia and France. One of the effects of global capitalism is that local alternatives are not erased, but simply become one of many options. But the new generation then loses their specific taste for their culture, belonging moreso to the homogenized and cosmopolitan nation of Capital. Not one culture replacing another, but all blending together. Instead of there being one nation, one culture, the idea of distinct cultures itself is abolished and instead replaced with a buffet-style pick-and-choose for what individual marketable labels you wish to apply to yourself, which 'cultural exports' you want to personally partake in. There will no longer be a distinct "German", but simply people who reside in Germany and often partake in German customs, amongst various American, French, Chinese, Dutch, etc. customs and national products.

A good example to illustrate how this naturally emerges, and the process of how local cultures can generally be erased, is clothing. Dress is a very unique and cultural product, what dress is considered fashionable or traditional is very location and time sensitive. However, in much of the developing world, tee shirts and shorts are now the standard. Is this because this style of dress is simply 'superior' to the local style? Not necessarily. Instead, nations like America open up mass-production of goods in places they are able, such as China and Vietnam, for their consumption. For mass volume of goods, low margins and high efficiency production is required. However, given capitalism's tendency to always seek the increase of profit, this doesn't remain a two-person system for very long. Instead, other markets are plugged into this system, and flooded with cheap goods. Oftentimes, third-world youths do not wear tee shirts and shorts because they are better, but because they are cheaper and more plentiful than local attire, given the industrial manufacturing process of them. It is simple outproduction. This also explains why this process of cultural homogenization has only occurred recently -- global freight prices have only recently become low enough to support this type of system, as well as the internet serving as a near-instant method for global communications between firms, as well as helping to dislodge capitalists from physical Capital. A man in America can own a factory in China and never see it, but keep in constant communication through the internet. These innovations have greatly improved the ability of capitalism to invade every market possible, and impress their culture upon the natives.

This is not merely a theoretical concept, either. A collection of essays, titled The Case Against the Global Economy, offers writings from various authors positing criticisms to global capitalism in the modern context. One of the first examples in the book is of a rural Indian village. People lived together, aiding each other, nobody went homeless and there weren't really poor people. It was still a tribal, mutually-supportive arrangement. People made enough for themselves, and that was enough. Then, for military purposes, a highway was constructed nearby. This opened up the village to trade and commerce. New industrial goods entered the village, television sets, and so on. The younger generations became absorbed by American movies, wanting to become playboys and gunfighters, driving fast cars, and petty crime increased, people began to despise their relative poverty, and long for urban life. This is perhaps a bit of an idyllic image, certainly made by an author with a narrative to forward, but still is illustrative of the ways that global commerce affect and displace local culture.

Many people flock to localization as a solution to this. Shop local, support domestic industry, and so on. These are generally nonsense, pushed often times by capitalists who are willing to exploit the reactionary sentiments by those who feel as if they are losing their identity. A capitalist will buy parts abroad, assemble them in America, and pat a customer on the back for supporting domestic industry, or use labels such as "Designed in America" that mean very little. Five local restaurants may well all buy their ingredients from the same wholesale supplier like Sysco. Trends such as thing being labeled as 'relocalization' are also nonsensical, as if capitalism has ever existed as a domestic-only state of affairs. Capitalism has always involved foreign trade, but only in the modern times has it had such low barriers to entry to do so, leading to things like deindustrialization and so on.

Still, many push back against globalized trade. In doing so, they push back against capitalism itself. Capitalism seeks profit, and seeks to lower the cost of labor to increase profits. Manufacturing or sourcing shifts overseas to places with low wages. This is just natural for a profit-driven economic system. Those who support localization are fighting against the very nature of Capital, and do not realize the power of the institution they are combatting. As such, the global network of Capitalists easily organize various agreements, bullying state entities into signing these treaties under gossip and trickery, promising them more and better paying jobs domestically, cheaper goods for everyone, and so on. This produces things like the North American Free-Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, the General Agreement on Trade, and so on. This solves things on the back-end, to prevent states from actually taking action against global capitalism. On the front-end, with the angry workers, the capitalists create think-tanks, private propaganda firms, such as the World Economic Forum and Trilateral Commission whose job is entirely to pump out studies, articles, and essays defending the merits of free trade to the people. The power at the disposal of the capitalists is unparalleled and irresistable.

Part of the reason why the capitalists discourage nationalism is also just due to uniform goods being cheaper to produce. Different cultures have different tastes. Some people don't like western media, some people don't like western food, some people don't like western clothing. But the industrial manufacturing is tailored towards western-style goods, due to the west being the historical source of industrialism and high concentrations of capital. Retooling and setting up additional culture-specific production lines is expensive. Some firms do actually do this, but others simply seek to modify the local cultures to be more accepting of foreign goods. Generally this is an unconscious process, though sometimes it is through propaganda. Multiculturalism is one example, pushed often by large firms who simply wish to create a new market for their goods that are already tailored towards a different culture's tastes. The end-state of this line would be a unified global market, with all global cultural customs commodified and sold to all peoples depending on their personal whims, rather than cultural alleigance. In other words, total cosmopolitanism. Corporations would no longer need to tailor production to regions, but instead could make a single line of uniform goods for all people.

One of the greatest enemies of Communism has historically been Nationalism. This is simply because communism is internationalist, it requires international fraternity, brotherhood, cooperation, mingling, etc.. Under communism, all people would be equal, allies, comrades. There wouldn't be borders, there wouldn't be national boundaries or cultures. Nationalists, those who seek to preserve their nation and guarantee its existence, are naturally opposed to this. As are capitalists, who want to preserve their class-rule and power.

Throughout history, the greatest defense of capitalism against communism has been nationalist sentiments. One of the foremost examples is during the Russian revolution. When the Tsarist government collapsed, various nationalities rose up in rebellion and declared their independence, most notably and consequentially the Poles and Ukranians. The Bolsheviks spent much time and many lives subduing the nationalists in Ukraine, and the nationalist Poles halted the advance of the Red army, preventing them from carrying the revolution westward. Many view this as the single event that prevented revolution from spreading to industrial Europe and causing the degeneration of Bolshevik communism into mere state capitalism. The Polish call it the 'Miracle on the Vistula', and many do believe with credibility that if it was not for this, communism may have spread across Europe as a whole. In other words, the mass of people were stirred by nationalism, not internationalism, and the revolution was crushed by these loyalties.

Another example is the problem of the Nazis, and the general situation preceding their rise to power. When the communists began gaining traction in Germany, with the actual Communist party winning an eighth of the vote, the capitalist system needed a way to quell this growing movement. They turned to nationalism, and the Nazis in specific. Many groups, such as liberals and conservatives, used the Nazis as a tool to attempt to crush the communist movements, primarily through their nationalist rhetoric. The Germans were the superior race, superior nation, internationalism and collaboration with the French or Russians was an unthinkable evil when the Germans are their natural masters. By tugging on nationalist sentiments, the people can be turned from internationalism and the international worker's movement is quelled. More than this, attempted communist uprisings such as in Bavaria were put down violently by the Freikorps, notably at the behest of the SPD. The SPD had its origins in the communist movement, though were seen as not communist at all by many for proposing a slow and peaceful transition into communism. Through fears of being banned and a desire to hold on to what power they had, the SPD had voted to support the war in 1914, and had betrayed their initial goal of advancing communism by using far-right paramilitaries to crush communist uprisings. This is a powerful demonstration that the power of capitalism and nationalism can make people betray even their core beliefs with ease.

A final example is of America during the Cold War. One of the greatest ways that the American state sought to crush the growing labor movement domestically wasn't just through police raids and assassinations, but also through nationalist propaganda. The Roosevelt administration featured much in the way of nationalist propaganda, especially during the war years, as a means to garner support for the war. However, in the post-war era, nationalist sentiments were also stirred by the government to help deter internationalist sentiments. The Russians were portrayed as brutes, while the Americans were portrayed as hard-working patriots. The phrase 'under God' was introduced into the Pledge of Allegiance, to again summon nationalist sentiments, religion being a large part of national identity. Americana was pushed heavily both through advertising and commodities, a focus on American-style goods, art, and dress. Nationalism was aroused to maintain the loyalty of the people in the face of an internationalist threat who, in reality, wanted to unite the workers of both nations. This trickery can be seen in a 1986 Harvard survey of high schoolers, where forty percent of Americans believed nuclear war would happen within their lifetime, versus fifty-five percent of Soviets believing it would never happen. Nationalist rhetoric tricked the American people into thinking the Russians wanted them dead, and people believed it.

As long as communism has existed, the largest threat against it has been nationalist sentiments and nationalist rhetoric, used as a tool to crush international solidarity. All throughout the twentieth century, nationalism has played a key role in obstructing cooperation between the workers of the world. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, many capitalists believed it was now time to let off the gas, and allow this focus on nationalism to shift to the background, as it prevents the generation of profit. Industry was sent overseas, homogenization of culture was begun in strides, and the dissolution of local cultures was seen as a great opportunity for capitalists to make money. After all, the Soviets were gone, so internationalism was no longer a threat. This is perhaps the great blunder of capitalism. Moreover, this is following the general Marxist principle that capitalism will create the material basis for communism. This is not demonstrated solely in the development of productive forces, but also in the fact that global capitalism is a global phenomenon, like communism. In order for communism to be achieved, nationalism must be defeated, and capitalism is achieving this through natural processes of its own profit-seeking existence. Perhaps when the next great revolution happens, and it is carried across the world, nationalist fervor will not be there to save the capitalists. They will have betrayed, have sold out, their last and greatest defense, having chipped away at it for decades to get those extra few dollars, and capitalism will not be able to rally the people to its defense under lies and deceit of national loyalty and heritage.