The structures of modern society create conditions for nationalism

The argument

Modern nation states are not always formed based on nationalist feeling. Often they are geographical constructions — and people in one geographical region do not necessarily share cultures or languages, as with the various different ethnic groups of Nigeria — or political ones that change over time and depending on who controls them. For example, many borders shifted in the twentieth century with the collapse of the British Empire. This ordering is what the argument turns on. If national feeling came first and states were formed to express it, borders would be expected to follow the distribution of cultures and languages and to be relatively stable once drawn. What is observed instead is the reverse: borders drawn by administrative convenience or imperial withdrawal, enclosing populations that shared no prior identity, and redrawn again when control changed hands. A state of that kind cannot be the product of a nationalism that preceded it, because there was no single nation there to produce it. Modern nationalism, then, can instead be said to be manufactured by the conditions of these states, because it is beneficial to those controlling them that the citizens are loyal and believe in defending their state against outsiders. The incentive is practical rather than ideological. A state assembled from unlike populations still needs taxes paid, laws obeyed and, at the limit, soldiers willing to fight for it, and none of those can be relied upon from people who feel no attachment to the entity demanding them. National feeling supplies what the arrangement would otherwise lack. These modern states have formed what we now think of as the world order, so manufactured nationalism and patriotism is necessary for this order to be maintained, often for the benefit of those in charge. Nationalism is therefore a product of the nation state rather than its origin.

Context

Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Many modern societies are formed as a direct result of nationalist feeling amongst groups. For example, the partition of India by the British government in 1947 was based on different nationalist loyalties within India: Muslims were loyal to Muslim leaders, and Hindus to their own existing positions in the Indian state. The division of India into two states - one Muslim and one Hindu - was based on nationalism which existed before the two states did, not the other way around.

Rejecting the premises

1. States are also often cultural, meaning nationalism is not necessarily manufactured.

Framing

This argument is often made by modern socialist thinkers who see nationalism as a way for capitalist ruling powers to divide the unity all people should feel in favour of smaller nationalist groups. In this context, nationalism is seen as a recent phenomenon (at least, on a large scale) which exists to benefit modern political regimes.