Fascist Distractions

When global capitalism fails, nationalist, xenophobic and nativist sentiments are awakened in the collective subconsciousness of the nations that are about to lose not only their cultivated national identities but see their real income go down with it.

As much as I personally believe in a world without borders, I'm perfectly aware of the fact that this isn't achievable in my lifetime or that of the generations immediately after mine. The main reason why I believe we will eventually have to let go of our current understanding of a world divided into nation states is their artificial nature and relatively recent emergence. It may be difficult for us to envision right now, but before the 18th or 19th century there was no such thing as a nation state in Europe. Back then, people didn't think of themselves as being part of a nation, as they barely left the village or town they were born in, and centralization of political power was limited in those kingdoms and small empires due to the state of education and technology.

In fact it can be argued that the further centralization of power began when a number of monarchs allied themselves with the rising class of traders and producers in order to weaken the feudal nobles. In order for the newly enlarged territory to thrive economically on the engine provided by trade and production, public education and news media became necessary to unify a people who previously didn't have anything to do with anyone outside their village or town. Why do you think all modern nation states have a national flag and a national anthem? Did you know that at the time of the 1789 French Revolution, only half of the French people spoke some French, and an even smaller part spoke the version of it that was to be found in literature and in educational facilities? The formation of our current model of nation states was a lengthy process that was executed with the utmost emergency, which is why it's so deeply ingrained in our national psyches.

But the same economic system that had to run smoothly within nations' borders back then, has to run smoothly on a global scale now, without severely damaging the socioeconomic hierarchy demanded by that same system. Here's an internal contradiction of capitalism seldom heard or discussed outside the circles of Marxists and socialists: capitalism creates poverty, and then it criminalizes poverty. And when poverty occurs alongside racial, ethnic or religious divisions, it criminalizes those demographics. This phenomenon is much easier to recognize and comprehend when you're aware of how closely linked the evolution of mercantilism into capitalism and the formation of nation states are, as well as the fact that capitalism is a political economy that can't function without centralized leadership that's responsible for enforcing the laws associated with the ownership and accumulation of private property.

In any case, the TL;DR is that the economy has become globalized in a world where citizens strongly identify as members of nation states. The irony is that this next internal contradiction of capitalism is once again created by capitalism and the capitalists themselves. What works on a national scale works exactly the same on a global scale. Where capitalism creates a growing gap between rich and poor citizens withing national borders, it creates a growing gap between rich and poor nations outside. When rich western nations start wars in poor countries that are rich in natural resources, they create a flow of refugees who flee to the more prosperous nations. When western corporations move their production facilities to low wage countries, they initiate in those countries the same process that led to the widening wealth gap in the west, only at a much accelerated pace.

Meanwhile the capitalists have created withing the borders of rich western nations a situation where the average citizen, the working class, sees it real spendable income fall behind the rate of inflation. And they're told: "here's a credit card, so you can use debt to maintain your living standard." And when that doesn't work anymore (not just in America but the world's citizens are more debt-ridden than any time in history), the distractions begin in order to steer the citizens' attention away from a failing system. Well, failing for the 99 percent that is. The state and it's puppet media empire that's owned by their ruling sponsors start to play the blaming game. It should come as no surprise, looking at the large picture I've tried to sketch here, that the initiators of this blaming game are found on the right of the political spectrum, the conservatives who have as their main goal to keep intact the existing hierarchies in capitalist society.

The most extreme and well known examples are America and Great Britain; those nations have taken the distraction game to new levels. Maybe Great Britain is the most extreme example, as they've invented "Brexit," leaving the European Union, as the ultimate distraction that aligns perfectly with the xenophobia and racism that's induced by a globalist economy that leaves national citizens and workers behind. I don't have to tell my readers anything about the rise of nationalism, ethnonationalism and fascism in Europe and America, but I'll still ask you to watch the below linked video in which Marxist professor Richard Wolff explains his opinion on why and how Europe is in the state it finds itself in.

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