home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/eplcs/kuhn dec2019/f... · web viewthe...

55
Nation-state, nationalism, instruments of capitalism Vítor Lima 1 Capitalism, to consolidate itself, created the nation-state, endowed it with tentacle and repressive state apparatus and a discriminatory ideology when not racist, the nationalism. As a process, capitalism has globalized, without losing the use of its instruments of accumulation and social management; even with the preponderance of the financial system as the main element of capital creation (fictitious), capitalism is the responsible for climate aggression. And there is no solution for the planet and humanity within capitalism and using its usual instruments - nation-state, state, nationalism, political classes. Summary 1. How capitalism created the nation-state 2 - Nationalism as an instrument of ideological control 3 - To each nation a nation-state? 4. Capitalism magnifies the nation-state in its process of consolidation. 1 Vítor Lima http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/ [email protected] Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 1

Upload: others

Post on 13-Apr-2020

0 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

Nation-state, nationalism, instruments of capitalism

Vítor Lima1

Capitalism, to consolidate itself, created the nation-state, endowed it with tentacle and repressive state apparatus and a discriminatory ideology when not racist, the nationalism. As a process, capitalism has globalized, without losing the use of its instruments of accumulation and social management; even with the preponderance of the financial system as the main element of capital creation (fictitious), capitalism is the responsible for climate aggression. And there is no solution for the planet and humanity within capitalism and using its usual instruments - nation-state, state, nationalism, political classes.

Summary

1. How capitalism created the nation-state

2 - Nationalism as an instrument of ideological control

3 - To each nation a nation-state?

4. Capitalism magnifies the nation-state in its process of consolidation.

5 - The capitalist globalization reconfigures the role of the nation-state

5 .1 - Some segments taken from the domain of nation-states

6 - The State, local manager of the stratification of the Human beings

/// + \\\

1. How capitalism created the nation-state

The sedentary nature of human beings has created several and chained groups with increasingly complex relationships. Families expanded and intersections with other families emerged in the context of meetings of a wandering life or conflicts leading to the integration of the defeated; This integration corresponded to the implicit appreciation of human capital, where and when the hostility of the environment forced it. On the other hand, closure in the same inbreeding was avoided2 and the emergence of a great diversity of human beings spread across the planet was favored.

1 Vítor Lima http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/ [email protected] It does not worried for centuries European royal families, producing commonly, physically or mentally weak

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 1

Page 2: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

In Rome, gens were sets of families that saw themselves in an illustrious ancestor or considered important in their lives, as a unifying element and implicit generator of identity; which is comparable to clans in other societies in Northern Europe, Arabia, China, Japan, etc. These lineages later led to the concepts of noble and nobility, as a social class in which affiliation in the same lineage was essential. It is known that the lineage had true meaning only when there was possession of lands, mills and, slaves, levers necessary for the exercise of political power; for those who did not have this property the issue of lineage would be irrelevant, apart from the transmission of fathers or mothers to son (s) of possessions, even including in these small portions of agricultural land or workshops of blacksmiths, carpenters, etc.

On a broader plane came the tribe, a concept also from the Romans that was also remotely based on inbreeding, sealed by the veneration of the same gods, the lares. The incorporation of other elements, of distinct human groups or individuals, as was practiced by North American natives, has rarely been removed; the variety of peoples, tribes and, languages recorded in antiquity, between the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, has no comparison with the existing mosaic.

The concept of tribe in Europe ceased to be used as the manorial territories were formed, with a well-marked social division between masters and servants; the servants came to fit in as subjects of the lord (count, duke, king), in a picture of sedentary, of link to the land. The arrival of other tribes moving from north to south or from the Asian steppes such as the Lombards in Italy; or, the arrival of the Goths and Berbers to the Iberian Peninsula, for example, resulted in a total miscegenation. In the Lower Middle Ages, as trade relations became denser and the flight to the cities became widespread, the reference of origin was no longer the connection to a feudal house, to be replaced by the region of provenance, the gentile, as a reference of origin, identification, until the constitution of nation-states, when the main reference became the identification of origin; as today it remains.

This identification of origin was initially a simple reference that translated habits, customs and, a culture, before people of other origins. If Colombo was Genoese (which will not be peaceful), his trip to the Iberian Peninsula did not drag rights or duties towards Genoa. The same was true with Magalhães when he went to Spain after seeing his project rejected by the Portuguese king. At that time, people circulated, traveled, without prior knowledge of their "State" because at the borders no passports were required, leaving or entering; though few people traveled, confining all their lives in a small circle around their agricultural, self-sufficient community.

With the disintegration of the Roman Empire, the usual networks of commerce ceased to be used and the urban population declined, as evidenced, for example, in the abandonment of Conimbriga, with the richest moving to the countryside, to their villae, developing a very localized and self-sustaining economy. Thus, throughout the Middle Ages, an autonomous agrarian economy predominated, with a range of knowledge that went from parents to children, all illiterate (except the priest who gave mass… in Latin),

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 2

Page 3: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

with a low volume of foreign trade. The references of the population were fixed in the place, with sparse trips to urban centers; a self-centered, closed society, self-sufficient in food (as long as there were no wars or bad harvests) and autonomous in the knowledge of fields and domestic animals. Scholarly knowledge was anchored in the Bible and limited to monasteries and universities, whose teachers were clerics.

The dialectic between peasants and feudal lords was centered on the tribute to be paid to the nobleman to ensure the safety of the people without ruining it; in times of bad harvests, this was a vital matter. Thus the pendulum oscillated between the tolerance of the rural communities and the greed of the lords; and their abuse resulted in large and bloody peasant uprisings such as the remensas revolt in Catalonia in the second half of the fifteenth century, Walt Tyler and John Ball in late fourteenth-century England or, Jacquerie in France, few decades before, following many others, against the abuses of the lords since the tenth century. In Germany, the peasants tried to take advantage of the movements resulting from the Lutheran secession to free themselves from the lords, but Luther preferred to help the German nobility in their purpose of abandonment of papal suzerainty. In these struggles, the rebellious were not directed against a distant king whom they were asking for intervention but, against their direct oppressors.

In the typical agrarian societies of the European Middle Ages, the idea of nation-state was unknown because the solidarity was manifested among social classes - the peasants, among themselves against the masters; and among the latter, the extension of their domains was achieved by war, where it was not possible to obtain them through family crossings.

At the top of the manorial hierarchy in a given area was a king who often had equal or less relevance than some manor houses, and, on the other hand, the loyalties among the nobility were very volatile3 as is always the case at all times when there are riches in dispute.

The apex of the pyramid of power in the setting of Christian Europe was the Pope, "vicar of Christ" to whom everybody would be debtors of obedience and heir to the responsibilities assigned to the Church, although during the fourteenth to the fifteenth century there was an inter-papal competition; with one in Rome, another in Avignon and for a few years a third, in Pisa. For centuries there have been serious disputes over the primacy between clerical and lordly powers – all, dominating vast territories and servants; after the Lutheran and Calvinist schisms in the Protestant states, the king became the head of the local church, thereby adding one more element to the integration of the respective territory in the process of creating a nation-state. Following the French Revolution and the formation of the USA, the principle of religious freedom was stressed. Today, stricter situations of state religion are observed, for example in

3 It should be remembered, by the way, that most of the Portuguese nobility, under the dynastic crisis of 1383/85 supported the power delivery to the king of Castilla; this was not the case of non-eldest sons or bastards who saw the conflict as an opportunity to seize the lands of the noble supporters of Castilla.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 3

Page 4: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

Saudi Arabia, with the monopoly of Wahabite Islam or, in Iran, Shiite, where there are temples of other cults, and atheism is not punished.

No one would remember, in the late Middle Ages, to speak of homeland, nation, and even less of State. Take, for example, the genesis of Portugal.

The first Portuguese king was vassal of his cousin of Castilla and Leon, the Spanish emperor; and, to get rid of this dependency, he held, for decades, negotiations with the Pope over the number of ounces of gold to pay, to have only an obedience facing to Rome. Those who lived in those lands that became Portugal they were vassals of the king, whether they were Christians of obedience to the Pope (the people of the North), Muslims, Mozarabians or Jews (the people of the South), without any sense of nation, or even a common culture; despite this, the present-day nationalists celebrated Portugal's 840 years, counted from the purchase with gold and, the end of the Portuguese king's obedience to his cousin of Castilla and Leon. Only much later, in the 16th century, with the expulsion or forced conversion of Muslims and Jews, the Iberian kings tried cultural homogeneity; which in the case of Spain is still absent, of course, after 500 years.

The Italian republics, especially Genoa and Venice, had an oligarchic power structure with mature diplomacy, suited to their mercantile and financial logic, with territorial possessions circumscribed to the Mediterranean through war or plunder; and with little in common with the austere European kingdoms to which they lent money. Its decline began with the Ottoman expansion and the shifting of the spine of trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, initially through Spain and Portugal. Moreover, the Italian republics to compete in the outer space of the Mediterranean would have to use new shipbuilding and armament technologies, trade-support logistical bases and increase the volume of military spending to compete with the Iberian countries already on the routes of East and the Americas.

In the Italian republics, the economic dynamic focused on foreign relations was anchored in a caste of merchants and bankers, united by business, with no pretensions to a higher level of integration, especially national. The extensive Hanseatic League that united dozens of Baltic and North Sea cities formed an alliance for trade and transport in that region, minimizing pirate attacks. In these two cases, economic and political planning had nothing in common with feudal territories based on the constitution of peasant rents from warlords; and had nothing in common with the emerging nation-states.

The passage from the Middle Age to the Modern Age is structured under several axes. Existing lenders in the main urban centers financed the monarchs to promote the exploitation or conquest of their colonial territories, granted to small nobles such as Cortez, Pizarro, Almagro or the grantees of Portuguese captaincies in Brazil4.

4 These grantees had a hereditary right over the territory and, on the other hand, must give the king 20% of the gold or precious stones found; or 10% if they were farm producers.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 4

Page 5: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

The abundance of gold and silver in the American colonies of Spain, as well as the weaknesses of the natives, with their way of life destroyed by the colonizers and increased by the diseases offered by the latter, led to the slave trade until the 19th century, distributed throughout southern of the nowadays US, the Caribbean, the mines and the sugar mills of Brazil, for three centuries.

Gold and silver entered Seville twice a year in large fleets protected by warships; and, as feudal lords, the Iberian kings used gold to pay for war, the hiring of armies with many mercenaries, and the pageantry, with no purpose of economic promotion or logic of income redistribution, as one would say today. They acted as true feudal lords, owners of many lands and ideologically bound to Boullionism, the eagerness to own gold and silver for the creation of money.

The Spanish cities continued to be unhealthy slums where penniless nobles (who had a squire begging for them) but candidates for incomes and positions with the king, high nobility, and clergy; also ruffians, awaiting contract for the use of the sword in defense of a lord who paid the service; many merchants from various origins to sell their goods; rural without work, given the abandonment of land by the nobles; and many beggars and little thieves waiting for food at the door of the convents. The important thing was to have gold or silver in hands.

In the sixteenth century, in Spain or Portugal, there was neither nation nor state5

because the rise of capitalism was still incipient. The power was in monarchs, marked by the spirit of crusade, imbued with a feudal mentality, under which the territory was theirs; and where it did not exist a commercial bourgeoisie similar to that observed in the Italian republics or and Hanseatic cities. Their inability to understand the new economic dynamics was exploited by foreign traders who came to Seville to sell what was not produced in Spain and were paid in gold. In Portugal, where the scenario was similar, the economic ruin was added in 1578 by the king's disastrous military adventure in Morocco, which led to the dynastic union of the two Iberian countries, with the people's indifference to the fact the new king was Spanish.

The Iberian countries did not develop as capitalist powers but remained led by monarchs with an expansionist vision marked by concerns of evangelization in the new territories of the Americas and the East. And in the case of Spain, with an expensive and exhausting involvement in the political and religious wars that marked the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire. Hence, it happen its decline and the ceding of maritime power to Dutch, French and, English.

5 Only in the late fifteenth century, with King John II, was generated a national administrative apparatus, a state outline… with the arrival in India on a very near horizon.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 5

Page 6: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

The Netherlands6 (Northern Netherlands) had in the 16th and 17th centuries very different characteristics from the Iberian monarchies; it had created a republican regime after the end of a long war against the Spanish rule, which continued to be exercised in the South Netherlands, Belgium. It has done great work in building dikes and canals, modernizing agriculture by introducing crop rotation and increasing livestock breeding; and in manufacturing, the specialization of workers within the industry began to develop, producing larger, faster and more profitable ships to the colonial trade.

Its republican political regime corresponded to the rule of an active and wealthy bourgeoisie, which favored immigration, especially of artists, philosophers and, scientists; on the other hand, religious tolerance attracted wealthy or cultured Jews, expelled from Spain, from Portugal7 and Belgium, where the Spanish sought to maintain religious oneness.

The role played in the development of world trade generated major capital movements and gave rise to the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the Bank of Amsterdam, the emergence of joint-stock companies that came to originate the East and West Indies Companies, to which the state gave the monopoly of colonial products, increasing the profit margins of their holders. Almost at the same time, English competitors created the Bank of England, and the Bill of Rights that limited royal powers, while the property rights emerged.

Amsterdam has replaced Lisbon and Seville as the center of global trade. The Netherlands took advantage of and consolidated the shift of European trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, becoming the hub of developed sea and land links with the whole of northern or southern Europe, replacing, for example, the decaying Italian republics in trade with Morocco.

Colonial trade was complemented by transactions on the European scene in food and raw materials. Religious eclecticism allowed the monopoly of trade with Japan, after the Portuguese were expelled from there, always interested in trade but, linked to evangelization, naturally taken as offensive to educated Japanese.

This network of interests between traders, transporters and, bankers, operating on a worldwide basis, enjoys the absence of a despotic and imposing central power as well as religious freedom, were elements that greatly enlarged the commercial and financial capitalism designed in the Italian republics, in the essentially Mediterranean context. This network also aggregated the various dependent social strata, interested in the

6 Since this paper is not intended to summarize the history of the emergence of capitalism and the rivalries between the first capitalist countries, we are particularly concerned with the case of the Netherlands, not proceeding with the same process in England or France, unless it is particularly useful in framing this essay on the rise and fall of the nation-state7 Spinoza had very close Iberian ancestors. The same happened with David Ricardo, whose father was a Dutch Jew, with a more remote Portuguese ancestry.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 6

Page 7: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

current prosperity and continuity. The density of social and economic relations, especially in a small territorial space, unified its inhabitants in a common culture and interested in a State with a role to give a cover to private enterprise. As there was competition from other regions - England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Scandinavian countries - it was convenient to erect a border delimitation, the existence of an army and, above all, a powerful war navy - under the responsibility of a state apparatus, financially anchored in customs duties, taxes, tithes.

This evolving global project that involved the Dutch, more so as a culturally and linguistically homogeneous people (a nation) and averse to the domination of a foreign monarchy (Spain), is called capitalism. To secure internally social peace and defend itself from competition, this political project created a national label8 (Netherlands) that would unify the population around certain economic and political designs in the global scene and, in particular, the European framework - this project was materialized in a nation-state. At the same time and as European economic development was proceeding, in a global framework of competition and war, it was essential for the capitalists of the various countries, the creation of nation-states, with a territory and a population, of their own, mobilized for work and war.

2 - Nationalism as an instrument of ideological control

Each nation-state circumscribed itself by a border - sealed space that separated it from other competing nation-states as to the possession of territories and their wealth; and which today comprises other structures and distinct frameworks. Among these riches stood out relevant population groups, which were required in each nation-state to crack down and antagonize what would be necessary and convenient to face identical groups at the border as potential threats. As it is "my capitalists" that give me work and "my state apparatus" that gives me security against external aggressions "I accept a narrative that unites us all" - nationalism; and against neighbors and intruders who want to impoverish or violate "my homeland".

Local capitalists, with whom a new aristocracy was being integrated (not only sword experts like their feudal ancestors but literate ones, too) needed to have the mass of the population against a potential or effective enemy. Nationalism is an ingrained sense of belonging that transforms any poor thing living in a nation-state into a declared enemy of another poor thing, for the sole reason that the latter was born the other side of the border, each in defense of the interests of "his" capitalists against the capitalists of the other, which can be considered as a form of ideological and material capture - a new bondage - of labor by capital.

In fact, in objective terms, a shipyard worker, a producer of armor, weapons, wheat, or a sailor would soon change his social and economic position if, in the course of a war, they were included in another nation-state, after a territorial loss of the defeated nation-state. The immense changes in the political borders of Europe since the 16th

8 A trade mark, as one would say today, in neoliberal language

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 7

Page 8: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

century have rarely been matched by massive population movements. We cite two exceptions; the exchanges between Greeks and Turks on the banks of the Aegean a hundred years ago and the rearrangement of the Germanic population following the rewording of the borders in eastern Europe after World War II in a framework of great anti-German animosity. Conversely, African nations essentially maintained colonial boundaries without major migrations, because labor, whether forced or not, was on plantations or subsistence agriculture, in a context of traditional ethnic integration, where colonial authority was distanced and its economic power is very concentrated in commodities.

For people, in general, power and political classes are strange and distant things that are accepted, better or worse, for many, many reasons, namely because they hold the coercive power of the state in their hands, regardless of the color of the flag... The EU's blue flag started to be side by side with the national flags in public buildings without any problem; except in Britain where this has not been replicated since long before Brexit was spoken.

It is not the changes in border boundaries that most lead to migration. Wars, ethnic and religious persecution and, above all, the search for a better life, are the motors of migration, even in a world built by capitalism, by nature a creator of enormous destruction and convenient (for itself) inequalities. Human beings seek to settle where they can live in peace, without lack of food, work, housing, education or health care; and, for this, they disconnect from their places of origin, fit into different cultures from their own, bring about various discriminations and eventually integrate themselves, incorporating even the current nationalism and even the repulsion towards those who have just made it, going through the same emigrant course.

The original national bonds are lost within two or three generations as their insertion into the new society, their adaptation to a new culture. For example, in World War II, many thousands of soldiers, with recent ancestry in Germany, Italy or Japan, fought against countries of this close origin without embarrassment9.

This material basis for the creation of nationalism is profoundly opposed to the childish, false, metaphysical, and reactionary narratives constructed by the political classes, which justify the nation-state as the simple organization of a nation, pure, different, with its invariably glorious past, with their mythical heroes and spectacular deeds, with the occasional support of the gods ... Nationalism is a cultural and psychological deviation that proves to be the fuel of war, persecution, rape, looting, destruction, expulsion, massacres, barbarity, discrimination …

The nation-state is a mixture of common interests, with one or more peoples present in its territory; with a more or less intense mystique invented to shape nationalism, to exorcise the differentiation from the Other, usually based on fantasist or childish 9 Conversely, Guinean soldiers of Guinea-Bissau, who fought the Portuguese colonial army and who were unable to leave the country, were punished for this their choice; option taken often to avoid hunger and not for the sake of the colonizer

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 8

Page 9: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

elements used to mark this difference. Since the nation-state is a political construction of capitalism, nationalism is an ideological instrument of the latter whose use is performed by the institutions of the nation-state; and it serves to establish separation, difference, and antagonism among the inhabitants of a nation-state against those of other nation-states in the context of global and widespread competition. It is, therefore, an element of consolidation of the nation-state, favoring the rule of its capitalists and the administration, carried out by its political class, on the basis of differentiation, discrimination, racism; although it does not seek homogeneity, since the existence of various cultures may be useful to maintain some tension and division inside the homeland, to generate discriminated populations, since capital accumulation requires divergences, social, racial or religious hierarchies, to create struggle, dynamism. At the top will be a government to manage divergences and conflicts between the various capitalist interests, which will be able to compensate their representatives.

Nationalism is a weapon ready to be thrown, instilled into the plebs, by the possessing strata against other nation-states and their peoples. Regarding specific cultural groups inside a nation-state, there are cases where these groups want to create their nation-state, such as Kurds, Catalans, Basques… or fascists like Lega who had called for an independent Padania before becoming a national party; others, where these groups or cultures live within the nation-state where they are a minority but without independentist pretensions (Berbers or Copts, for example); and still cases in which these cultures are expelled and persecuted as outcasts, undesirable (Palestinian, Gypsy, Rohingyas…). Thus, some can live peacefully with their own cultures; and others are pointed out as threats to the unity and good living of the motherland, which, if appropriate, will not retreat from genocide, persecution or promote columns of fleeing refugees.

Nationalism does not require cultural homogeneity and accepts heterogeneity as long as it does not constitute a threat, damage to the march of business or the unity of the motherland. The construction of the nation-state generated the predominance of the spoken language in the area where the power was centered and the vulgarization of this language in administrative documents, through writing; later, with school networks and compulsory education, power led to widespread adoption of the language (s) it uses, with the regression or extinction of regional or local languages. The press and later, radio and television, came to accentuate the predominance of the language spoken by political power. And finally, US supremacy in politics, business, and the internet has made English the great language of global communication.

In Italy, everyone speaks Italian (Tuscany language) but there are millions of people who use their traditional, regional languages; the same is true in France but to a lesser extent (Basque, Breton, Occitan, Corsican, Catalan…). More lurid was, in Spain, the ban of the Catalan, Euzkera, or Galician languages by the fascist Franco regime for forty years; and whose effect was just the opposite, when freedom of speech was reestablished, with the natural uneasiness of the parties inheriting Francoism.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 9

Page 10: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

Due to its irrationality, nationalism tends to impose itself over other ideologies or cultures when it is based on fear of a threat taken and held as latent, though often only imaginary; it also serves to unite a people with a production of isolation or through the punishment of internal "traitors".

Nationalism articulates with the dominant religion in the production of persecutory and excluding acts, as in Francoist Spain. Similar nationalist repression took place in Salazar's Portugal, the creator of a "multicontinental nation" to legitimize the possession of colonies. And in Protestant monarchies, the king, as head of the national church, represents national unity.

Nationalism can be an excellent means of elevating to undisputed leadership, a dictator, a demagogue, a ruthless gang leader, as a leader of the nation, who will be indebted to such political capacity, so much love for the country; he will be showed commonly in statues and his name appears on many avenues throughout the country.

In short, the nation-state is not the logical and unquestionable result of the existence of a people, a culture, the sharing of a common language. The nineteenths idea of "each nation its nation-state" was a concept with specific and opportunistic purposes, in a historical context, later used according to political convenience and never desired or applied by the vast majority of specific peoples and cultures.

The nation-state, after establishing itself with political power (state), integrating capital groups and hierarchies, installs unifying symbols for the veneration of the people - the anthem and the flag10 in particular; and in modern times also with the national football team, taken as a squad mission is to defeat the enemy.

Through school in general, particularly at the youngest age brackets, nationalism is instilled through the heroes and achievements of the past which, as a rule, are greater than those of close competitors. This indoctrination serves to create a collective spirit and distrust facing other countries and peoples around, in the neighborhood. It is an inducer of distrust, disqualification and exclusion of an abstract Other and that should make each person a patriot, objective defender of the interests of the homeland or rather of "its" capitalists; by the verb and the shotgun.

Another historical element in the induction of nationalism is the compulsory military service (CMS) to which all young men were called11 to receive the due capacities for the defense of the homeland at any time, without limit to sacrifice, which may represent a glorious end wrapped in the homeland flag12… even though in his homeland they

10 When it is not a name invented based on, for example, the name of the capital (Algeria, Tunisia, Kuwait, Djibouti); something as artificial as Central African Republic (formerly Ubangui-Chari); or Pakistan that looks like a soup of letters.11 However, women also joined the armed forces in a spirit of gender equality; as if the equality between the two genders, in a context of strongly authoritarian and even ambiguous structures can constitute the elevation of someone.12 O capitalismo predatório e a estupidez patriótica (1)

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 10

Page 11: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

may have no more than free streets to walk. Presence in the CMS also means a training of obedience to a strict hierarchy, in the context of integral subordination, if not in the humiliation of subordinates; an induced obedience in young people that would lead them to accept the hierarchy at work, to obey the employer, the State, the police authority; and, in the case of women, also subordination to men - at home, at work, on pay, on rights…

Today, for technical reasons, CMS has been abandoned13 and the military14 became a praetorian guard, unconnected with the population, which for many is taken as a band of undisciplined civilians. Today's military is a volunteer, long-term contractor, skilled in the handling of sophisticated equipment, people looking for decent pay (hard to find as civilians) and a certain respect on the part of the plebs. At the lowest levels, they are ignorant people, easily indoctrinated and easy to use violence15.

Thus it turned back to the early days of capitalism, to the sixteenth century, when the European armies were made up of mercenaries. Today, in the United States, the recruitment of young people, especially the poor, is achieved by having a university entrance, something which is only accessible to families with possessions or, at the expense of brutal levels of personal indebtedness. In this way, the United States, by creating a mercenary troop, avoids the contestation of youth forced in the past to go to the clumsy and unpopular war of Vietnam; A mercenary is paid to take all risks, and if something goes wrong with his health… it is a professional risk.

3 - To each nation a nation-state?

If a nation-state arose only and "naturally" on the basis of a nation - characterized by ethnicity, culture, common past, religion, language or all - it would be necessary to explain why there are only about 200 nation-states and no more than 7000 corresponding to each specific culture/language binomial anchored in more or less specific territories. If so, one might wonder, where is the Monegasque nation, the identity of Liechtenstein, or that of each of the former English Caribbean colonies transformed into nation-states to serve as offshores to mafia for accommodation and money laundering?

http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/o-capitalismo-predatrio-e-a-estupidez-patritica-1A estupidez patriótica e a globalização (2)http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/a-estupidez-patritica-e-a-globalizao-2 13 Nationalism, which is very present in right-wing and " left " political groups, gives rise to the idea of the importance of an CMS, perhaps because they intend to replicate the pre-revolutionary situation lived in Russia in 1917 with its "workers soldiers and sailors committees". If being leftist necessarily means being anti-militarist, refusing hierarchies and classifications of human beings on the grounds of "nationality", it is evident that there is no visible Left in Europe. 14 http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/para-que-servem-as-forma-armadas (port) 15 Many later move to police or security companies for intervention, especially where physical violence is "acceptable" such as nightclubs

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 11

Page 12: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

If this assumption were true, how many would be liberation wars, conflicts, massacres, deportations and refugee columns fleeing the repression powers (bit) welcoming of independence postures? How many would be arrested for separatism or fighters for the independence of their homeland?

Refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean are fleeing economic disruption, banditry and, poverty and not as victims of the struggle of their cultures and ethnic groups to create a nation-state. And Rohingyas who flee to Bangla Desh do not do so by independentist drives.

Many of that cultures, have few members, specific mass or even will to build a nation-state for them; and they would certainly have the opposition of the host nation-state apparatus little given, by nature, to territorial losses. On the other hand, these subaltern cultures within a typical nation-state, with armies, police, a state-run nationalist propaganda apparatus, and a totalizing educational system, are repressed to fade away; or, accept them as generating elements of tourist attraction.

Today, national liberation wars are scarce, after the golden age of decolonization in the 1960s and 1970s. Tamils in Sri Lanka did not achieve independence after many years of war; native nations in the US are subject to tourist visibility, such as museum pieces; Kurds are gaining some autonomy in devastated Syria and Iraq; Palestinians remain confined to real outdoor prisons; the separation between Czechs and Slovaks proceeded peacefully despite their many affinities; Scotland expects better days to separate from formal Windsor tutelage; in Spain, Catalans, Basques and Galicians continue to have their own independence refused in the post-Francoist regime; and South Sudan recently split from Arab-based Sudan after a period of war… for oil sharing.

The decolonization of Africa was in many cases peaceful and, in the case of the Portuguese colonies, the colonial liberation wars ended in the mid-1970s, later of Algeria’s in1965; followed shortly thereafter by the collapse of the regime of the original population exclusion in Zimbabwe; to which that regime gave a name that honored a racist businessman named Cecil Rhodes. In South Africa, the apartheid regime continued until the 1990s when it was established as a multi-ethnic nation-state with eleven official languages under the leadership of the outstanding figure of Nelson Mandela. At the same time, Namibia became a nation-state free of South African tutelage after a long liberation war. The ensuing conflicts in Africa, apart the massacres in Rwanda or the division into two of an artificial Sudan, had not origin in ethno-cultural issues; just power struggles, plunder (oil, gold, uranium, rare minerals… ) and migrants deals of transport to the Mediterranean, with western involvement, as is observed in the Sahel.

The nation-state in its genesis brought together nations and territories - by integration or absorption - by assigning national labels to each human being; however, this figure only applied in fact in Europe and, in the late eighteenth century in the United States as

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 12

Page 13: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

well, although in China and Japan there were also centralized nation-states, but within autarchic models, unrelated to the dynamics of capitalism.

In parallel with the most extensive or intensive character of European colonial rule, the presence of his power began to wane in the transition between the eighteenth/nineteenth. After the creation of a slave and genocidal republic by European settlers - USA16- the pioneer Haiti - a republic of former slaves - emerged, followed by the independence of South America, where each nation-state was ruled by an immense variety of cultures and ethnicities but under the political and military hegemony of the Creoles, more or less direct descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers. However, the Monroe doctrine - America for Americans - actually meant US suzerainty on the continent, with the conquest of the last Spanish colonies and the perennial habit of intervening in the "backyard" south of Rio Grande - with invasions, military coups, dictatorships, assassinations, and more recently through sanctions - with the support, tolerance or distraction of European nation-states.

Until World War I, war was the common means of creating or expanding nation-states, in many cases with very unstable borders, especially in Central Europe where the German Confederation and Austria shared the domain of the so-called Holy Empire (which was then a heap of hundreds of small and large landlords); and, in Eastern Europe dominated the empires, Russian and Ottoman, the last, in a usual struggle with the Persian Safavids, for control of Mesopotamia. In the western part of Europe were the maritime powers that controlled the colonial trade, with France in a position of two faces; on one hand, France had its colonial ambitions contained and reduced by the greater English power and, on the other, it was looking for a great European continental empire, centered in Paris, as two Napoleons (the original and the third) had tried to erect. Russia, meanwhile, expelled the Swedes from the eastern bank of the Baltic and became the main beneficiary of the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian electorate while extending territorially to Alaska… later sold to the US.

Europe stood out through the conquest, dispute, and occupation of colonial territories, as well as inter-imperialist wars or occupation of the weaker. Faced with decaying imperial powers in the late nineteenth century until World War I - Austria-Hungary and Turkey - with the aim of dismantling them, the idea of “each nation its nation-state” was defended, however impracticable that it would be in the Balkan or the Middle East countries, given the territorial and cultural interpenetration of the peoples of these regions . At the same time, the imperial powers were dividing Africa among themselves, drawing boundaries with no concern in the face of the divisions they created within ethnic groups, peoples and tribes or, in keeping previous political structures, in North Africa or the Sahel. Africans were inferior beings, a concept properly defended by "scientists" involved in targeting of human races in and sterilization of mentally handicapped or for people with less handsome features. In America, after the US conquest of vast Mexican territories, a relative peace reigned in the South, in the Creole states; only the final expulsion of the weakened Spanish 16 Symbolically, the first US president, George Washington was a wealthy owner of immense numbers of slaves.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 13

Page 14: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

colonialists (from Cuba and Puerto Rico) was missing, as well as the English colonies (notably Canada); but the last belonged to the most powerful nation-state of the time.

Ataturk, after the break up of the Ottoman Empire, took as far as possible the idea of national uniformity within Turkey; it has exchanged Greek populations in Asia Minor for Turkish inhabitants of Greece and the genocide of Armenian Christians, who could be… adopted by the Tsar of Russia at Turkey's expense. Still, to upset Turkey's “identity,” Kurdish nationalism remains, to this day without recognition for the constitution of a nation-state.

Shortly after the dismantling of the Turkish and Austro-Hungarian empires, Yugoslavia emerged as a mosaic of peoples with various religions and languages (which were close, unlike religions), with diverse communities very mixed and borders very difficult to draw; However, this time the great powers intended to give the whole a rational and viable dimension. To avoid “balkanization” the idea of “each nation, its state” was left behind. Despite this diversity, the Yugoslavs strongly resisted Nazi occupation, despite the support of the Ustachas (basically Croatian Catholics) to the occupier, in a fiercely anti-Serbian posture inherited from Austrian memory.

About eighty years later, again that principle of accentuation and exacerbation of the nationalist spirit returned to Yugoslavia as the product of various interests of entities alien to its people. Germany intended to widen the field of trade expansion by benefiting from the breakup of Comecon; pope Wojtyla wanted to integrate the former Austrian provinces of Catholic tradition (Slovenia and Croatia) in his ultra-reactionary crusade spirit against Belgrade and the Serbs, with traditionally good relations with Russia; and finally, the US (dragging the EU alongside it) again encouraged “balkanization” with the creation of a tripartite Bosnia-Herzegovina, FYROM (now Northern Macedonia), Montenegro and the creation of a territory (Kosovo) promoted to nation-state to receive the big military base Boldsteen where US can oversee the entire Balkan Peninsula, preventing against Russian influence on the Slavic peoples of the region.

The same principle of “each nation, its state” was not, of course, followed in the decolonization of Africa; so the colonial boundaries were maintained, enclosing, in general, in each one, many ethnicities and languages that, as a rule, have centuries, sharing in common the same space. For example in the Niger valley cohabit hundreds of ethnic groups and languages. The creation of nation-states by the colonial powers did not end this cohabitation, complemented with some languages of communication between distinct communities; the strangeness was the existence of borders and the presence of indigenous political classes as delegates of the former colonizers - the so-called "black skin, white mask"17. The same happened with the Quechua language, spoken by indigenous peoples from Colombia to Argentina, along with the Spanish language introduced by the colonizer.

17 Title of a Franz Fanon’s book

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 14

Page 15: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

It would be insane to apply the identity principle to Africa. First, because it would result in a confused and debatable redefinition of spaces and peoples; secondly, the colonial nations sought to maintain their preferential influences and business in the independent territories, as well as the continuation of mining exploitation and plantation regimes. On the other hand, the small westernized elites, heirs of the colonial administration, did not want to open the dossier of the pre-colonial ethnic groups, which would restrict their powers to the cultural and ethnic nuclei from which they came; or lose their role as intermediates face to Western capital in a broad space, supra-tribal. Particularly, it was required to them to provide a stable operation of markets ... and loot. Thus, the only cases of future partitions would come - after long and violent conflicts - with the Ethiopia/Eritrea, Sudan/South Sudan separations and, unrecognized by the 'international community', in the Somalia/Somaliland case.

The British Indian Empire was initially divided into four nation-states, all far from ethnic, cultural or linguistic oneness. With the notable exceptions of Japan and Korea, the same is true in almost every Asian country. Indonesia is another great mosaic of languages and ethnicities but, the Dutch colonizers never even tried to install the use of their language, accepting the continuity of Malay, traditional language of communication in the region; The Dutch confined the use of its language in the upper circle of colonial administration.

Geopolitics is a game of economic, financial and logistical interests and makes peoples and nation-states as instruments of dispute, whether more intense or destructive, as political classes manage to - or fail to - instill the venom of nationalism and exclusion of the Other, for the benefit of indigenous or globalized capitalism.

Most cultures or languages do not aspire to the constitution of a nation-state, and for various reasons:

Many, they think if dispersed by several nation-states, each of those, is contrary to cede part of its territory to one of its minorities; also, is hard to a nation-state to admit its minority will join a group of people with the same culture but, living in a second nation-state; and, in addition, it would be hard to accept the emerging, of a third nation-state as a product of that agglutination. Indeed, the sharing of Jammu-Kashmir between India and Pakistan reveals that neither of these countries will give up a millimeter of territory, either to the other or to the creation of a new state sovereignty.

As a rule, a nation-state has its state structures occupied by ethnicities, unique or strongly majority cultures, with the monopoly of the police, military, judicial apparatus; and it is usually within this dominant culture that local or national economic power also is linked. The minorities only rebel if discriminated, constrained in their life-enhancing desires to a social promotion; or, if under cultural, linguistic, or religious repression, as happen in Northern Ireland Catholic community, but not in the Hungarian Catholic communities in Serbia or Romania (both Orthodox), as in the Turkish minority in Bulgaria.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 15

Page 16: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

There are also cases where political power is based on minorities. One can quote to the Maronites in Lebanon, used by the French to create a separate political entity from Syria, following the First World War but since, outnumbered by the Shiites; or in present-day Syria whose political power belongs to Alawite minority. In the cases of Maronites or Alawites, there are identities based on religion (present or inherited from ancestors) but in the case of Afro-Americans the identification and segregation are based on the more or less present African origin, the skin color; the same is happening in Brazil.

The relevance of immigrants, especially in Europe and the US, has grown and is marked by discrimination, exclusion, persecution; their acceptance is more problematic, the more different is the physical or cultural typology of them. Being a South American immigrant in the US has different social and political acceptance conditions towards immigrants from Europe and in Europe, there are obvious differences whether the immigrant is African, Islamic or from Eastern Europe. The discrimination of immigrants is always constructed by a packed narrative of prejudice as being opportunistic, to explore the social security systems, and be thieves, dirty, rapists, terrorists, disturbing the good and heavenly peace in their place of adoption. Synthetically, it is called to this set of preconception, racism; and, by the way, is interesting to remember racism has its origin in the Iberian Peninsula18

Jews, for about two millennia - and despite their ethnic and social divisions - lived in well-identified communities without a nation-state, self-segregating themselves to remain a community or, being segregated and persecuted for political reasons, religious or popular envy, or as origin of popular discontent in the nation-states where they lived For centuries they never sought to constitute a nation-state until they took advantage of this fashion, in the late nineteenth century, to launch this project, emigrating a few thousand to Palestine, where for many centuries there was only a small Jewish community in harmony with the Islamic majority. Zionism, the racist doctrine of defending the Israelites as an anointed people, advocated an occupation of Palestine as their ancestral homeland and, with English support, they established themselves in that territory, expelling or segregating its occupying ancestors, victims of brutalities that can be compared with those of the Nazis. It is, therefore, a “scientific”, exclusionary and fascist nationalism, anchored in the support of the US and the political and financial power of Jewish-origin oligarchs. Only money and its resulting influence allow such "national" excrescence.

Conversely, Gypsies have always been poor, segregated and wandering communities, pushed into ostracism, with a particular presence in the Balkans, where they developed a very interesting musical culture. No financial or political power offered them a territory to build a nation-state.

What is the nation-state? It is a contingency where other contingencies came to an end, with an apparatus called the State, with totalitarian rights of repression and

18 Racismos – Francisco de Bethencourt

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 16

Page 17: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

plundering of “its” inhabitants, segmented according to the various performances defined by the State19. The State is filled by a hierarchy more or less mafia - the political class, in permanent liaison with the top of the range of capital; national and global. To color and brighten this sinister picture, they joined this nation-state with a hymn and a flag. 

4 - Capitalism magnifies the nation-state in the process of consolidation

Globalization, in its earliest form, began when Lucy's sons left the Rift Valley and set off to uncertain destinations; but losing, temporarily (thousands of years) each other's references20. And it was widening its geographical scope, including more and more human communities, mainly through the formation of empires that created the security conditions for the exchanges. Alexander of Macedonia wanted to conquer the world but was thwarted by the forests of India, the heights of Pamir and the fatigue of his troops. Later the Romans turned the Mediterranean into a Mare Nostrum stopping at the edge of the stormy Atlantic, behind the defensive wall against the Picts in the west, the Sahara in the south, the Rhine and the Danube in the north, and the confrontation with the Parthians in the east. Still later, the Muslim empires formed sea and land bridges with India and China, with Marco Polo, Venice and, Genoa linking Asia with the rest of feudal Europe. This distant commerce focused on luxury goods whose high price resulted in part of the total dimension of travel and the risks during it.

If one thinks of globalization in simple geographical terms, it was consummate with the deeds of Colombo, Vasco da Gama and Magalhães, followed by the unveiling of some corners, until the eighteenth century with Cook and, already in the twentieth century, with the explorers of the polar zones. Anchored in five European Atlantic countries - Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France and, England - globalization has developed war, trade, conquest, slavery, technological developments and a huge exchange of knowledge. From this chaotic, unscheduled evolution resulted in a new way of generating wealth - capitalism - which had as its essential instruments:

the nation-state, as an organizational model of people, goods and, capital, anchored in a well-defined space;

nationalism as ideology, form to agglutinate a specific and multifaceted population but excluding or suspicious of the outsiders;

and finally, the State, as the managing apparatus of wealth creation, keeping the population pacified by law or by repression.

19 O Homem, ser social e fragmentado (Man, social and fragmented being) http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2013/02/o-homem-ser-social-e-fragmentado.html 20 The 20 million people in Mexico caused by the arrival of the Spanish, measles and, smallpox (in addition to the superiority of the latter), mainly due to Mexicans having no contact with other humans. since the Bering Strait was flooded again after the last ice age.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 17

Page 18: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

As the world is an open space, the distant trade in luxury goods or spices desired by the wealthy - now most numerous - was highly profitable. Artisan production of goods, destined for a nearby area, typical of medieval times, gave way to production to distant destinations, unknown to their producers and on a scale that would not fit the capacities of medieval artisans, grouped in brotherhoods21.

If there is no link between producer and consumer everything becomes dependent on the trader who defines prices, quantities and, (high) profit margins that allow large accumulation of money and the creation of a banking and financial sector. Traders and owners of a country proceed to a collective defense, as cartel (avant la lettre) face the external competition, with the royal support for Indies Companies, holding the "national "monopolies" (read, of the richest merchants), extending the administrative functions of the kingdom, with the king to levy duties on imports and to defend national production from foreign competition. The national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as an attribute of all that is belonging to or an attribute to the nation-state. And each nation-state was like a fortress that, through cannon and commerce, took the world as a market, never losing its individuality.

This protected space, with an administrative and military apparatus with a king at the top, gains uniformity and cohesion versus the outside, from which threats may arise; the relevance of borders and the call for war for territorial conquests for the capture of lands and people from markets emerges. Kings increase their power with a broader administrative area - treasury, customs, army and navy, police, courts, and administrative and labor control legislation - far beyond what was required in feudal landlords. Great drivers of these transformations were the rich traders of global transactions, with the East Indies, the West Indies, or engaged in the African slave trade, notably from the seventeenth century.

The demarcation of borders, the existence of an administrative and financial structure through an apparatus - State - in a well-defined and well-defended space, materializes the nation-state, a fortress-state. For example, in France, with the ordinances of Villiers-Cotterêts (1539), a national register of births and deaths is made from the registers of religious structures; and along with the usual Latin, the French language was adopted, which would become the only one used, after the French Revolution (although there were many versions of it). On the other hand, these ordinances contained the prohibition of the brotherhoods of arts and crafts, typical structures of the feudal era, taken as surpassed by globalization and consolidation of the implicit logic of the market.

What has come to be called the national bourgeoisie establishes an intimate relationship with the State, personalized in a king or equivalent (Cromwell) as the leader of the nation-state; a cohesive set against the outside or in the repression of disgruntled social strata. The presence of the state apparatus is an essential requisite

21 Curiously, certain relatively privileged professional categories are once again assumed as true brotherhoods, in spite of the open and free-market logic contained in the neoliberal discourse.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 18

Page 19: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

for increasing the wealth and power of the richer traders who may be called capitalists - they own moving capitals, arm ships, trade and order fabrics, weapons ... especially for sale outside, nearer or farther.

Capitalist production requires a device (State) to its service, a territorial delimitation and cataloging of the population as nationals, keeping out as foreigners, people with any distinction towards people belonging to the nation. It must be noted that China, initially with an administrative organization, technology and greater wealth than Europeans, has never shown interest in developing trade with these "barbarians." And because of their size, China understood do not develop foreign transactions since the fourteenth century, mocking objects Westerners later had, for exchange purposes. The big problem arose in the nineteenth century when the "barbarians" forced China, at the threat of its cannons, to collaborate in enriching foreigners by buying opium.

The Netherlands stands out as heir to a commercial and manufacturing tradition with roots in the Middle Ages and with the freedom of thought it consolidated, after a long war against the claims of Spain; the last, anchored in the typical power of heritage in feudalism sink financially in constant wars in the defense of its very fractioned possessions in Europe and encysts as the guardian of Catholic traditionalism, fighting the humanist ideas22. The treaty of Westphalia is followed by a long period of rivalry between France and England until the last assumes clear world leadership with the defeat of Napoleon and the Treaty of Vienna in 1815. After the Franco-Prussian War (1870) England shares global hegemony with Germany and the US, a balance that will break with World War I, when Germany loses all its colonies and the US overcomes England as the main power. After World War II US strengthened its leadership in the western world and the first configuration of a world system - financial (Bretton Woods, IMF…), commercial (GATT / WTO) and military (NATO); but with the Soviet Union as a rival power, particularly in the military field. The UN appears as a descendant of the defunct League of Nations, as a common denominator among the nation-states, strengthening the role of these as sovereign elements framing the population; however, with a directory of major powers - the USA, France, Great Britain retains, the USSR and China (first as an ally of the West and then under the current form of the People's Republic, positioned alongside the USSR).

5 - The capitalist globalization reconfigures the role of the nation-state

Globalization currently develops processes of subordination of nation-states23 by the creation of multi-national or international norms and institutions, assuming that the nation-state level is too narrow.

22 At the most prestigious Iberian university - Salamanca - Augustinians and Trinitarians in the 17th century get involved because some considered Adam imperfect after God had removed a rib (to create his wife) and others understood that the same God has filled the hole with meat (!) 23 http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/04/para-uma-breve-historia-de-uma.html (port)http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/05/para-uma-breve-historia-de-uma.html (port)

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 19

Page 20: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

Between the nation-state of the past and the unification and uniformity of the planet by multinationals and financial capital24

where are peoples and people? And from an active and prospective standpoint, what attitudes and choices should people take?

During the predominance of industrial production, the need for labor was resolved in the first instance internally by young people or coming from the field in search of opportunity of livelihood and life.

On the other hand, in several countries, where industrial production was insufficient to absorb the population increases generated in the countryside, emigration was the alternative to live. Emigrants went to territories of European colonization and in a great process of capitalist development or, where the spaces were huge and the indigenous population scarce and marginalized (mainly Brazil, Argentina, Australia, USA or Canada). For example, a hundred years ago the Portuguese massively emigrated to Brazil or Argentina, the Italians for those countries and the US, such as people from many other European countries; in addition to African Americans moving from the US agricultural south to the industrial regions of New York or Illinois; a march drawn on the evolution of the blues.

Migrations entailed problems of social inclusion, xenophobic attitudes, and ghetto creation. On the other hand, it also resulted in pressure on the wages of indigenous workers because migrants, to survive in a foreign land, with difficulties in cultural and linguistic adaptation, tended to accept lower wages or more painful working conditions than those in their own country.

The production tended to include all phases in the same space, with thousands of employees in a single chain of command, accompanying the whole production, the various components to the final product. As transport was slow or irregular and logistics rudimentary, no major decentralization was possible and production would have to be concentrated, if not in the same factory, within the same city or limited to one region. For the same reasons, the fate of industrial production was mainly confined to close consumers, in a relationship that favored the widening of major conurbations.

This concentration of production induced a large concentration of population and wage earners who lived near the factories, huddled in unhealthy districts. And this general context of poverty and large families25facilitated the union of workers against capitalists in the defense of their interests - wages, working conditions, working time - with protests, demonstrations, strikes. The response of the capitalists and the State was, invariably, one violent repression, with arrests and assassinations, targeting the workers and their organizations; in addition to that practiced through the “private” hiring 24 http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/02/o-grande-problema-chama-se-capitalismo.html (port) https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-big-problems-name-is-capitalism-not.html (eng)25 The large number of children led to the designation of factory workers as proletarians, even though child mortality was very high, as opposed to low life expectancy.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 20

Page 21: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

of criminals aimed at reaching the most active workers in the organization of the protests.

The globalization of capital has involved “its” workers in hard work, directly linked to value production and military service, as agents of the destruction of war, for the defense or enhancement of their homeland. Very early on the workers realized their own globalization and, that across the border, their comrades had the same problems with capitalists and governments, with the same attitudes against the working class; It was the time of the construction of the internationalist consciousness of the workers, which occurred along the development of the industrial production, the transport networks, the financial system and, the military technology.

This time of hard struggle just slowed down in the US and Europe, with the final of the great recession of the 30s, through a plan of public works, which only came to good overall results with the mobilization of workers and material resources to the war effort and which underpinned the emergence of Keynesianism. In Europe, the proliferation of fascist regimes spared few countries - Britain, Scandinavian countries, Benelux and France despite a strong fascist threat, declared with the establishment of the Vichy regime, after the Nazi occupation.

The international competition embodied competition between companies from various countries, wages and work conditions, as well as in the assault on the raw materials of colonized or dependent countries. New technologies - machinery, means of transport, sales and consumer promotion techniques - were quickly adopted by competitors, constituting ephemeral advantages, requiring, since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, new investments and mobilization of capital, with cross-border character. In turn, public investment was geared to harnessing ports, transport infrastructures, rail and road, canals, etc. as a way of ensuring the competitiveness of national capitalists.

Massive use of the automobile and mass transportation was possible only with the abundance of oil, with the creation of the pipeline and the tanker, whose size and load capacity reached an unprecedented 500000 t during the closing of Suez, not coming to realize the plans for ships with a capacity of one million tons. The ores, mostly of iron and copper, reached the industrial metropolises of Europe, North America, and Japan in huge bulk carriers, requiring specialized and expensive port structures. Recently, there was the relocation of heavy metallurgy and pollution for mining countries, ending units in richer countries that purchase only, processed products; leaving CO2 emissions in poor countries.

Standardized container and container ships have substantially increased reliability and speed in loading/unloading, helping to reduce the cost of transport per unit of cargo. This has led to intermodal transport where several logistics operators are articulated for an optimized solution involving various modes of transport, from leaving the place of production to the place of destination, probably thousands of kilometers away.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 21

Page 22: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

At the same time, at each point of change of means of transport, such as at the place of origin or destination, stock management techniques (kanban, just in time…) are used to minimize storage time (and costs) and developing night work and permanent work, to make the investments profitable. An old business phrase has never been taken so seriously: "time is money"26.

Linked to these technological developments in mobility and logistics is the current segmentation and relocation of material production. Rather than a single factory that incorporates all stages of manufacturing, current capitalism, segments this production into parcels, distributing them to geographically distinct locations. This segmentation in simple installments is necessary but, meaningless if isolated and, is applied to take advantage of low price work, by itself or, in relation to the required level of knowledge; it needs of places where any wage or labor demand is prohibited or suppressed by the government ; in situations where unemployment is high and any factory, even with low wages, is welcome - Volkswagen in Palmela (Portugal) in the 1990s; in addition to other advantages, such as the price of energy, the abundance of water, the militarization of labor, the overexploitation of domestic work, especially of women and children; or , where there are corrupt unions and governments. The workers' movements that since the end of World War II had been adopting postures of collaboration with the capitalists and of accepting a very dubious and arbitrary role of the governments, suffered a brutal blow with the relocation, as factors of separation and competition between workers of diverse geographies. These are some of the great advantages of the relocation, related to the level of production to the multinationals so constituted, that act on a level far beyond the scope of a nation-state.

The number of large companies that build those networks draws enormous power over nation-states hosts, whose acceptance requirements is assured, because the use of the old weapon of nationalization not even make sense in the context of a targeted production components, per se, useless outside the network set up by the mother company. And, under that power over the nation-state, the multinational - usually located in a rich country - can even get local government subsidies to maintain employment to hundreds or thousands of workers and put in competition different countries, poor and unstructured, where are installed the relocated units.

The impotence of the vast majority of nation-states is even more evident you when using entities off-shore in the circuit, with formulas ingenious of overcharging or under-invoicing of elements produced in a country and billing issued in off-shore, for minimize tax burden and maximization of "value" for shareholders and management; that means, good conditions for profit formation, capital accumulation and, dividend distribution. A case released a few years ago27 gave the lead to Swatch, a Swiss company whose export was materialized by an invoice issued by a company - consisting of a simple

26 To the extent that Montu-branded 28-hour standard watches have been invented and produced by the Japanese company Sports Train (quoted in Anselm –Jappe et al. El Absurdo Mercado de Los Hombres Sin Cualidades)27 “Suite 605” from João Pedro Martins

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 22

Page 23: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

post office box - registered at the Madeira International Business Center, based in Funchal; hence Madeira officially figured as an exporter of watches… even if not even a pointer was made there. Of course, the "export of watches" can change instantly and often from “location”.

In the field of goods for final consumption, it can be offered for sale in various corners of the globe, by companies captured by leonine contracts, with a priori fixed prices, namely under franchise contracts, where the franchised invests in infrastructure, which is determined in detail, by the multinational company; and, having that company an assured performance with all the risk under the responsibility of the local franchised.

In the case of communications, financial, marketing, health, education, consulting… the dependency on the motherhouse does not differ except on the nationality of the workers; multinationals carry out some levels of decentralizations, supranational, national, regional, to have an agile sells machine or production management. And the internet has introduced a technical element of enormous shortening of information exchange, accelerating the processes of transformation and avoids the physical movement of workers and managers, as they did decades ago.

The banalization of air travel, especially tourism, facilitated the links between people and knowledge of other realities, despite the environmental impact (air pollution, noise); also the motorway networks, the high-speed railways, the urban infrastructure , all substantially expanded the area of operation and movement of people and goods , making porous borders and tendencies of separation that no one connects , but, one day … for a future framing in tourist itineraries; except at airports where governments fear of bombings and hidden bombs .

The consolidation of the nation-state matrix has come to an end28; new nation-states no longer appear as in the period of decolonization. English overseas territories (the Caribbean offshores, Gibraltar or Bermuda, Southern Atlantic territories, and Diego Garcia, leased to the US for military control of South Asia, after eviction from its population) as well as the French (in America, the Indian and the Pacific oceans) are small units with little or no population but with important marine resources or strategic positions, important for powers that still claim a global performance they no longer have. Except as U.S. accessories to configure the label of "international community".

In parallel with this segmentation that leads to the capture of nation-states by the networks of multinationals, the financial system and the capital of crime, is the construction of multi-national, essentially sectorial coordinating organizations that develop plans on specific matters applicable to their members. - NATO, WTO, WHO, SEATO, APEC… The most comprehensive have limited powers over their members (UN, OSCE, UNASUR, OAS, ECOWAS, EEA, SCO…). The European Union is the clearest and most developed case of multi-national, economic and political integration

28 https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/08/union-of-european-peoples-or.html (eng) http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/09/uniao-dos-povos-da-europa-ou-o.html (port)

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 23

Page 24: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

which obviously restructures and re-hierarchized spaces, maintaining huge differences in income and living conditions among the peoples, as well as within each nation-state; in addition to a shy autonomy claim towards the US who clearly are , overall, in a strategic loss. Still, it is not advisable politically, nor economically fruitful for the life of the people, a breakdown of the EU, mainly because it is not available a social and political movement with an alternative and democratic framework of goals and performances. Rightmost, the link to capital is clearly expressed; and, out of the right political area, there is no strategy other than maintaining small clienteles and raising public funds by focusing on short-term or media shows.

The interest of the peoples is subordinated to the accumulation of capital and to the performance of the political classes in the above-mentioned organizations, where the nation-states are represented. In other cases - Bilderberg, Davos… - they fraternize, in a context of great secrecy, members of international organizations, leading political classes, CEOs of multinationals, big bankers, think-tanks …; beyond experimental convocation of politicians on the rise in countries of smaller relevance.

Within productive and financial infrastructure, of segmented production, a globalized capitalist class was developed - the known 1% of the world population, popularized by Occupy Wall Street movement29 - using each nation-state like a space suited to the development of, one or another portion of a transforming process, which may be either the material manufacturing, the production of a service, the circulation of electronic impulses, generators of financial gain or, the installation of military bases.

On the other hand, technologies of information, social networks, internet, overtake State checks, dispensing its intervention or presence The process of globalization, of participation and sharing of information through networks, is completely devoid of any concern regarding the integration or densification of the intersectoral matrix within each nation-state, the balance of external accounts or a greater complementarity among the companies of that same nation-state; something that was of great concern at the time of the planning structures typical in the state apparatus in the Keynesian era and which continues in the ideas of the supposed leftists, as a rule, nationalists.

Thus, nation-states and their governments show they are small and powerless to deal with all these realities, competing with each other in the search for investments of multinationals, offering material, financial and tax facilities to attract investors; and show service in the upcoming elections. This dilution of boundaries and the power of the nation-states are resulting as primary reactions, regionalist or nationalist drifts, xenophobic purity, religious - evangelical sects, Christian, ISIS, the Taliban ... - with the support of significant parts of frightened populations; and to an auto-centered focus, that beyond the gods, focuses on family, sometimes in the community or, in the most important belongings (home, car, mobile phone, money in the bank ...) and, in US, the inescapable power of weapons. The awareness of the ineffectiveness of the political classes is shown by the growth of electoral abstention, as well as by the

29 David Graeber's Democracy Project

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 24

Page 25: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

securitization, with the proliferation of guardians, in the entry of companies, public services, supermarkets...

5 .1 - Some segments taken from the domain of nation-states

Of course, multinationals and the financial system are not preparing a secret application of an anarchist project, without the nation-state, nor state apparatus. National segmentation is useful for localized crowd supervision by the respective political classes; it serves to maintain a certain degree of competition, between geographical spaces, to secure investment by large multinational groups. The existence of own state structures - repressive, judicial and legislative apparatus - managed by a specific political class is a generating factor of nationalism, of antagonism vis-à-vis other nation-states and other peoples, for the benefit of those who know how to divide and reign. The International is not part of the hymns most sung by the capitalists from the base to the top.

The debt

Capitalism has for decades ceased to be a dynamic force in the field of material production, and now, is anchored in a financial drift, constituting rising cascades of debt30 which is self- feeding, leaving behind a ballast of charges that, directly or indirect, are falling on populations; it is a strict group, closed, of speculators, seeking as instantaneous as possible for profits and, that no way favor the not involved in that voluptuousness; but, whose fall is transmitted to the general population, by the hand of governments and political classes close and paid by the said financial system31. The political classes, on one hand, surrender public goods and business to the sacrosanct private initiative and, by creating deficits as routine, issue debt securities that are quickly absorbed by speculators who surrender them as collateral to central banks. In the event of a global financial disaster, no one will remember to write off public debts, as nation-states will always have the population to repay them.

Information Control

The needs of the global infrastructure where information circulates, almost instantaneously, are permanent and, derived in large part from the whims anchored in the proper functioning of the financial system; and, as a result, that global infrastructure is shared by a wide range of interests, from the common personal communication, access to information without warranty of widespread reliability and even less privacy.

30 http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/02/debt-inbecoming-perpetual-is.htmlhttp://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/03/how-financial-system-captures-humankind.htmlhttp://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/03/how-financial-system-captures-humankind_26.html https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2018/04/the-ten-years-of-crisis-winners-and.html Other texts in English and Portuguese, see - http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/ 31 Obama has tried for several months to contain the repercussions of the subprime crisis on the financial environment but has stopped resisting and has decided to prevent a more catastrophic recession with a substantial increase in public debt.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 25

Page 26: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

Those reservations about the circulating on the internet became more evident with the massive introduction of the famous fake news.

Personal data and opinions are captured and explored by data collection companies, notably social networking, messaging or other platforms such as the famous Cambridge Analytics … whose mentor is Boris Johnson's instructor. Data mining, in real-time and huge amounts, allow the capture of personal information, where each person lives or circulates any moment, once the mobile phone, the GPS and the computer are antennas in a true service to those companies… as well as spy or police services. In turn, capital transfers, the tax evasion of the powerful, the accumulation of capital in offshore accounts are not disturbed because they constitute essential interfaces between the financial system, the criminal world and, the political classes. At the same time, the migration of the occupation of time watching TV - which required some physical immobilization - to the mobile phone, makes the use of the internet more extensive in space and more intensive in time; not to mention the emptiness of what invades the brains, especially of the young. In all these processes, the intervention of the political structures of each nation-state is minimal because the operators of these technologies have much greater intervention powers than those of the heavy physical and localized equipment. What matters to them is the fluidity compatible with market appetite for data collection and advertising.

Treaties that depreciate nation-states

The recent formulations of the major treaties emanate from arbitral tribunals (a kind of parallel courts, outside the jurisdiction of any country) - Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA ) and Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) - place the rights of multinationals above those imputed to the nation-states . They are inserted on power transfer logic to large capitalist enterprises, putting the nation-states, in a subaltern situation face those; any transgression results in high penalties in favor of multinationals that ultimately will correspond to higher tax burdens or public debt, which will burden incomes of the population or promote reduction of public social spending, on behalf of the sacrosanct balanced budget .

A global monetary system without currency

The availability of cards with chip, custom use, debit, credit, purchases of goods or services, enables information to commercial companies, as for the global financial system networks on housing, types of consumption, income, personal relationships; hence there is a long pressure to generate card buying and payment habits, an ongoing trend that will lead in the medium term to the abolition of physical money ... accused of having a high cost of production and circulation.

Its abolition will also make disappear all and any monetary movement beyond what is embedded in the financial system databases and intermediary companies that live around, as the "old" type cards Visa and many others; it will be the domain of Big

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 26

Page 27: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

Brother and the desired end of "informal economies". A serious flaw, the product of computer sabotage, or war, can put millions of people with no way to buy or trade anything, with catastrophic consequences that will put the old direct exchange back on the ground.

On the other hand, since money is only symbols circulating on the Internet and controlled by the financial system, states no longer issue notes and coins and the central bank no longer has money to manage; just as the mass of values embodied in so-called derivative products is not managed today.

Anticipating this scenario, a virtual currency type bitcoin or libra (currency announced by Facebook), point to a near future, the existence of means of payment with a total intangibility, based on chains of electronic impulses, constantly moving and accelerated, embedded in the logic of self-reproduction, cumulative, disconnected from materiality and any nation-state.

Nation-states have traditionally been thirsty for controlling people and their incomes. This new situation of dematerialization of the currency and its full integration into the globalized financial system means that the state apparatus will also introduce all its flows, all acts related to its functions - taxes collection and maintenance of health services, education, application of justice, military and police corps ... under the control of the financial system. Is it the abolition of state power and the absolute dominance of the globalized financial system?

The education systems

Standardization of education systems is an essential desire for big business that wants to broaden the mid-range and upper recruitment base by introducing a common way of thinking and acting that allows a standardized "employability" that can serve any multinational enterprise, anywhere on the planet. In China, and according to the tradition of producing a competent public administration (dating back to the 14th century), "leadership academies" such as CELAP in Shanghai, CELAJ in Jingaushan and CELAY in Yan'na have been created since 2005 following similar institutions opened in Singapore; even students continue to go to … Silicon Valley, to familiarize with innovation. Two worlds, two single-purpose systems - maximizing capital accumulation or, more popularly, GDP growth, in the context of commercial, technological and geopolitical competition that could lead to global or regionalized proxy wars.

Teaching is intended to produce value creation agents, armed with the necessary entrepreneurship that allows a winning competition against the competitors, with a spirit of sacrifice that subordinates family and personal life; and yet it will remain in a precarious context because labor rights are aberrations today. Management techniques are presented as ways to produce productivity gains, competitiveness, through computer programs with adequate rigidity to avoid discussions, doubts and, creativity on the part of the users. Integration into obedience and sacrifice as a rule.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 27

Page 28: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

In this normalized context, the social sciences or the arts are depreciated as instruments for understanding reality because, as they are not inserted in the competitive environment, they do not have "employability".

For young people, higher education is a factory of obedience, of neoliberal format and very standardized. Those who remain critical will also have to keep quiet to secure the job and, whoever does not restrain himself from his insignificance is devalued and pushed into useless bureaucratic tasks - the Bullshit jobs32 - in the margins of value creation.

6 - State, local manager of human stratification

The existence of a framework of political dominance requires a segmentation of the society - and every person – in the convenient aspects to a peaceful continuity of the condition of a subject. To do this, each helot must be transformed into a zealot of the motherland and capital, without the awareness that he behaves like an idiot.

In very distant times, the first human being whom others believed to be able to foresee the storms and heal the sick, gained authority over the rest, as he was given the power to communicate with the unknown, powerful beings who ruled the earth, rain and drought, life and death, what happened on earth or the stars. These predestined, in communication with the unknown, deserve the respect of the rest who, in their turn, they thought they needed priestly support33 to intervene with the Beyond to give them rain, good crops, and good health; that would be the subject of human sacrifice or animals, to elevate the power of the gods and their intermediates, removing, therefore the recourse to the divine intervention to puerile questions.

Thus was found the priestly caste, whose dedication to the revelation of the divine moods was a difficult work which the community could not do, nor could dispense; hence it was accepted his exemption from the hard work of securing his livelihood.

To ensure a life well, with good or bad harvests, independently of the mood of the gods, the priestly caste demanded the people a material contribution (grain, cattle, work or currency). Having into consideration ordinary people do not always want or could give their contributions, the priestly caste created one coercive power and the means to ensure it - armed individuals to exercise tax collection functions, to defend the priests riches against invaders and, oblige people to work for the realization of the appropriate "investments" to the visibility of the greatness of the kings-priests for eternity.

32 Bullshit Jobs: A Theory” - David Graeber33 For many centuries in Christianity, masses were said in Latin which the Most High would surely know, but ordinary believers did not; as a result, the intervention of the priests

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 28

Page 29: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

From this merger started the beginning of the legitimation, exclusively, of fiscal exaction, the exercise of coercion and violence in which the royal and priestly powers were merged, since immemorial time; and for this to happen legitimacy is essential to be accepted by those who will be subordinate under those hierarchical structures. Through the centuries and in any form of society, the emergence of hierarchies has been concomitant with dominance relations; and the endogenization of these social and mental structures in the various peoples and all historical eras following the "specialization" of functions referred to above. Over the centuries, a long-term state of mind - an empire - has sedimented itself, in which some in each generation stands as rulers, deciding for all others, and in which this domain is taken naturally, an inherence of the species; or, who accept this preponderance, this power, by comfort or fear, and integrate within themselves that state of mind, reproducing it, accepting this division between dominant and dominated, as part of human nature. This imperial spirit is transverse in time and space, revealing itself at the moment when someone emerged as having powers of communication with the beyond and when this was accepted by the others, thus emerging the primordial social division between human beings.

Thus began the creation of a structured power of human groups, elevated to a status of dominance over the rest of the population, by the sacralization of their functions from which the imposition of fiscal duties and the obligation to perform military functions, in a context of acceptance of a general duty of obedience and submission to this elite; with greater or lesser use of the sacred. Those who did not belong to the caste were segmented by the caste as worker, taxpayer, soldier, spectator or just a thing if they were slaves; a classification that has changed designations - but not functions - according to historical times.

Conversely, in the twentieth century, according to René Dumont, in the context of colonized Africa, there were three structuring entities in the lives of peoples - le militaire, le missionnaire, le marchand; the first aggressed, the second generated domestication and the third plundered.

Of course, Dumont's analysis reflected the racist behavior of Europeans, to deal with "wild", without specialization but, needing of domestication, to be integrated into the wonderful society of work. Race is especially valuable as a way of assignment of the toughest tasks and very low price to a population for this purpose, subordinated, infantilized.

In what we call market democracies, power is exercised less brutally and more mellifluously in the domestication of peoples. The regular election of leaders as representatives of the people in the selection of caretakers for the fulfillment of the multiple duties assigned to the people; it is intended to be done peacefully, with consent, as a rule, by the alternation between two little differentiated parties. "Something needs to change for everything to stay the same" (Giuseppe Tomaso di Lampedusa).

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 29

Page 30: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

In the view of dominant political and economic structures, human beings are, in the first instance, classified by their nationality, by the nation-state normally attributed to them at birth. The absence of this primary registration will have as consequences real non-existence and is complemented throughout life by many other frameworks, granted by the State in its various facets, as undertakings for the financial system and even, instances of other nation-states. This gives rise to the appreciation (positive or negative) that is given to each person who is thus controlled and conditioned throughout his or her life, leaving even post mortem duties to the heirs.

However, there are several situations of double, triple… nationality, especially for those who are wealthy. And also there are situations of absolute refusal, targeting poor or refugees, in situations of humanitarian care; then nationality matters little or is even anathema.

This conditioning to humans is multifaceted. In the first instance, it shows the segmentation of individuals according to their relevance on the scale of capitalist returns in general;

At the top are the individuals who manage the reproduction of capital, either directly as participants in the production process or through intervention in the circulation of goods and capital;

The following are individuals who - not performing any productive functions - are essential for the maintenance of the capitalist system and its political structures. In this context, are included the political classes and members of the apparatus with functions in the area of repression, ideological or social control and the judicial strains. They are, as a whole, a simple cost, but profitable from a systemic point of view;

Who follows are the performers of working functions, subordinated workers, incorporated in the corporate hierarchy or the State apparatus; and that, in turn, they are staggered, according to their specializations and labor links, placing at the end, the most undifferentiated or precarious;

At a lower level are those who are unnecessary or surplus to the system but who marginally allow the viability of less noble sectors of capitalists with lower profit rates, such as the "social economy"; or the subsidized unemployed who are obliged to pay a perform as "social work";

In the end, at the level of the hierarchy built by capital, are the tout court surpluses - unemployed, especially the long-term ones or, pensioners - for whom the system reserves emigration, deprivation, shortening life, invisibility and, disappearance.

Each individual from his birth record presents himself as a single and indivisible monad; however, this monad has the form of a polyhedron, with many faces, using essentially according to the interests of capital accumulation and its managers, at the

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 30

Page 31: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

level of State or other instances, political, economic, social or ideological. Thus, each person is considered in a fragmented way, according to the functions in which capitalism integrates and uses it (or does not want to use it). Such use may be made from a strictly economic point of view as a producer, consumer or debtor; as a political entity, with rights and duties; as thinking being - in the development of immanent capacities; or, as manure to recycle, more slowly in a cemetery, or by diluting in a crematorium, leaving as remnants, a gray box and the tax registration.

Materially, each person is present in a great diversity of databases, and parameterized from various angles, with some aspects here and others there, according to specific analyzes performed on huge masses of information. That information is held by the State, the private consultants and, increasingly, the global big data compilers who sell it for commercial, trend-setting, political, military or media manipulation.

Let us now look at the main facets of this polyhedron that mirror the fragmentation of individuals according to the interests of capitalism as a whole and certain segments of its economic, political or ideological structures, in particular:

The consumer is a courted individual, land seen through the potential of his income or the bank cards he has.

Rich or poor, the consumer is a lode to exploit, to charm with the satisfaction of obvious or other needs resulting from display, the satisfaction of small jealousies, the occupation of more or less cultural activities, such as idiotic or barbarous distractions, where the protagonists reveal themselves in their most beastly repressions. The market is vast, creative, comprehensive, insinuating, mellifluous and amoral; it flatters the consumer only as long as he has means, current or future, to use in consumption.

The collaborator is the designation of the wage earner in the novilingua of neoliberalism. It is no longer the worker, the wage earner, the labor force, the factory worker, or another epithet revealing the subordination and antagonism towards the boss, who is now also metamorphosed into "employer. These designations embody intended to iron out the social contradictions and point the "employer" as a successful case of struggling creator of value and employment, using as a resource the "collaborator", a happy marriage that, with the entrepreneurship of both parties will promote the creation of wealth and employment, per omnia secula seculorum. The employer is a benefactor because he creates employment and the employee will be the devoted and eternal thankful, for the mercy of the job ... until the dismissal comes.

The collaborator designation is a figure appearing in the business "literature", in documents and sites of the companies and also under the resource designation, knowing that is disposable, one gender of inflatable, which both fills as it can drain out. Employees are often dismissed as unemployed as a result of internal restructuring while not becoming (yet) a waste.

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 31

Page 32: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

The debtor is a usual consequence of employee and consumer situations as it is the income associated with the first category that makes banks open to credit for consumption. Those who are not collaborators do not get the banks' collaboration, even though it justifies their need for credit; Nor he will have access to credit cards, with those fabulous designations such as "gold", "golden", "platinum," "premium", which serve to elevate the customer's ego and convince them of his great importance to the institution.

Banks are always beckoning - credit for homes, cars, travel, furniture, computers, anything that can anchor the income of any unwary to bank repayment for decades. Any bank will be happy to have, for several decades, a guaranteed income, a mortgage and insurance in its favor, paid by the debtor, happy for access to property and consumption.

Particularly due to the deference of the political class, the employees and consumers also carry the burden of State debt, contracted by the political class and immediately socialized under a phrase as stupid as common as false "the State is all of us".

The access to the glorious category of taxpayer is assumed at birth; the first diaper pays VAT; and that's just a smooth, unconscious beginning of the financial obligations to the State, the nation-state manager. The famous Tax ID Number (TIN) is the pivot that will accompany each other's lives and even burden the lives of children or heirs. The shadow is extinguished with death, but the TIN does not.

Behind the TIN is always the State, thirsty to increase the amount of taxes to bridge the deficit, to invest and helps the competitiveness of the capitalists; since without those, the figure of the collaborator would not exist. In other words, God, after creating the capitalist, decided to create the collaborator to serve that one.

In his role as a patriotic taxpayer, the individual will provide the State so that the political class can distribute welfare, tranquility… to everyone. For the illiterate in politics, the payment of taxes is a change from the pocket of the pants to the pocket of the coat because the State is a common house. And paying taxes is supporting governments to help national banks and guarantee… national independence.

In the bad show that is what we call market democracy, to the adult population is offered the voter status, which thus decides who will appropriate the proceeds of tax collection; knowing that, as a rule, the voter generally has no right to be a candidate. To become eligible, the voter must belong to a party oligarchy, enjoy the sympathy of the party boss, or fill the party's treasury with important donations.

In addition to the aforementioned functions, the market offers elements for the filling of time, fixing the individual in activities as a spectator. Attentive, the market offers many alternatives for the viewer, all of them encouraging a consumer

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 32

Page 33: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

activity, the appropriation of goods. A spectacle is mounted around each person to integrate and qualify all the moments ass acts of consumption; a consumption that does not satisfy other needs than the capture of the available time, especially through the image and a primary hedonism and, little reflection; a consumption covering the free spectacle of wrestling provided by the political class.

The capitalist system is invasive and would not be content to free people after a day's work; it appropriates their time not devoted to the production of goods or services and, to this aim, has increased the relevance of the part devoted to ideological content, the flattening of deductive capacities, the diversion of activities of social or political protagonism, the generation of social numbness. Capitalism seizes space-time, rebuilding it incessantly; it is a biopolitical control system. The market offers everything, makes everything available, it is a complete system that, like an amoeba, does not need the other to reproduce. The market is the system and the system is the market.

Like any element necessary for commodity production, man has a period of maturity as an instrument for the reproduction of capital; another, where it is downright productive; and a third to which the theory of decreasing yields is applied, where an increase in age corresponds to a lower productivity for the system as a whole.

Including people as waste has several origins. They are the oldest, with a retirement pension increasingly close to biological longevity and increasingly short replacement incomes; a range of the youngest, unskilled or unskilled by the "market", with occasional occupations or away from their specializations… so uncompetitive; and those that increase the flow of refugees, of wars, hunger or the environmental impacts of the disruptions contained in the functioning of "markets" and subjected to humiliation, violations, underpaid and precarious work, always at the risk of racist violence or of expulsion.

In the present time of financial capital predominance, value generation through the production of goods and services leads to various problems in which human beings are parameters rather than objectives. Information technologies and robotization reduce the incorporation of direct labor into the production of goods and services, and what is incorporated carries higher qualifications; this results in increased productivity, increased competition and large populations in unemployment, underemployment, and the abandonment of populations based outside of the advanced and globalized capitalism, living in the midst of all needs, insecurity, ecological and climatic problems.

The ecological problems34 are growing and become popular but within some passivity or technocratic approaches contained within the operating parameters of the capitalist system as well in the naive belief in a more committed role of the political classes. If

34 https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2019/01/o-delirio-capitalista-e-deriva.html (port)https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2019/02/o-delirio-capitalista-e-deriva.html (port)https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2019/03/capitalist-delusion-and-climate-drift-1_21.html (eng)https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2019/04/capitalist-delusion-and-climate-drift-2.html (eng)https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2018/09/decrescimento-capitalismo-e-democracia.html (port)

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 33

Page 34: home.iscte-iul.pthome.iscte-iul.pt/~apad/novosite2007/EplCS/Kuhn Dec2019/F... · Web viewThe national word became vulgar, precisely with the consolidation of the nation-state, as

this continues to be the case, capitalism will do something to prevent environmental catastrophes, damage to the insurance (and financial) sector, taking into account the return of invested capital and investor expectations. It will put on stage technologies and measures with environmental impacts less harmful, taking into account various assumptions, such as proper financial amortization of investments present on the ground and impacting negatively; the opportunity to invest large capital in new, "environmentally friendly" technologies as is often referred by technocratic, tolerant ecologism towards capitalism; and will seek to outsource to the poorest countries and regions of the capitalist periphery, the most environmentally damaging activities, counting find there the tolerance, elements of political and economic disruption or, the presence of clearly venal political classes.

Solutions that can be called ecofascism are foreshadowed, with a world population diminished from its present "excess" to 1000/2000 million human beings in the sign of the century35; or even 600 million, a figure that was pointed out at a Bilderberg meeting36where secrecy is the rule.

35 Requiem for a Species de Clive Hamilton36 Pointed by Susan George in El Informe de Lugano

Vítor Lima 30/9/2019 34