The National Theory

The National Theory
by Kurt Schulz

The existence of the nation-state is traced back to the fusion of a city-state with an empire: the empire’s focus on frontiers combined with the city-state’s concept of government. It is from this that the modern republic arises.
The modern republic is virtually inseparable from the entity of the nation-state.
The nation-state, however, is a harmful cocktail ethnicism and government. A state must correspond with a geographic boundary, and anybody living within that boundary is subject to the laws of that state.
Problems arise from this frequently, especially in countries with mixed ethnicities – which in this day and age are virtually all of them. Even in the Koreas, one of the most homogenous regions in the world, there are minority populations of ethnic Chinese and Japanese.
Nation-states became a popular means of government in correspondence to the rise of nationalism. The dream was to unite all people of a certain “nation” under one state.
Yet this is an almost impossible goal, again because there is hardly a homogenous region in the world.
On top of this, history has proven that the creation of a nation-state has done little to help ethnic minorities within the nation-state, or members of the nation outside of the nation-state.
For example, the founding of the German Empire was Otto von Bismarck’s attempt to unite ethnic Germans under the Prussian crown. Resulting both from Bismarck’s loyalty to Prussia as well as his expansionist policies, non-Prussian Germans as well as ethnic French, Polish, Danish and Frisians lost their freedom to express their culture in a meaningful way. This was especially true with Bismarck’s policy of “Germanization”, a manifestation of his personal nationalism.
Even with the founding of the German Empire, there were still many European ethnic Germans living outside of Germany. These included Austria, but also Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Bessarabia and Bukovina. The treatment of ethnic Germans in these regions was sometimes bearable, sometimes brutal. In fact, after World War 2 most Eastern European countries expelled their German populations.
Up to today there are still issues with the nation-state. Ethnic Hungarians in Slovenia have complained of mistreatment, explosive civil war erupted in Bosnia between Serbians and Croatians, Kenya is currently split between the Kukuyu and Luo ethnic groups, Rwanada experienced a horrific genocide of Hutus massacring Tutsis, and
A nation-state neither protects minorities within their territory nor has absolute ability to protect members of their nation who are minorities in other countries. Warring nation-states will often mistreat members of each other’s ethnic enclaves.
On top of this, the idea that all members of a nation have a common interest is spurious. France, for example, has experienced longstanding divisions between urban and rural. Paris has 16% of France’s population, and is the largest urban area in France by a factor of almost 7. Naturally, Parisians have different interests than fishermen in Normandy or cattle farmers in Limousin.
In Canada, the provinces often are at odds with each other, but even within the provinces there are divisions. Northern Ontarians in Kapuskasing or Kenora have different interests than Torontonians, and the Cree of Northern Quebec have different interests than Montrealers. Residents of the Fraser River Valley likely have contrasting interests with those of the Central Coast, whose interests are different from Vancouver residents, whose interests are different from Vancouver Islanders.
So, it is clear that over geographical expanses, issues and interests change frequently. Even from town-to-town there can be a big difference in culture, way of life, ethnicity, etc. anywhere in the world.
The solution, as demonstrated, cannot be a nation-state, for they are incapable of managing the affairs of either ethnic minorities within their country or even the affairs of members of the same nation from region to region.
It would appear that the only legitimate social entity, therefore, is the community – that is to say, the people who one lives around, works with, and could interact with on relatively short notice.
As such, the only legitimate independent social institution – one that is not subject to the authority of a more powerful institution – is one organized around the community.
To this end, community socialists propose a system whereby every community across the world organizes themselves into one or more neighbourhood councils, which would be fully participatory and include every member. In these neighbourhood councils, all members would vote, and the community councils that the neighbourhood councils would send delegates to (proportional to their population) would put those votes into action. The community councils would send delegates to higher levels, and the votes of the neighbourhood councils would be tallied and combined by all representatives at all levels.
In simple terms, the neighbourhood council is where the decision is made, and the community council is responsible for making sure that the decisions of the neighbourhood councils are carried out at all levels.
This way, if there is an ethnic enclave – suppose ethnic Frisians in Northern Germany or French Canadians in Manitoba – and their community is made up of members of these ethnic groups, they could form community councils and federate with other Frisian/French Canadian communities into a Frisian Community Federation or French Canadian Union of sorts.
The added benefit, of course, lies outside of the concept of nationhood. That benefit is that no matter what nation one is a member of, their affairs are taken care of locally, where the people truly know what’s best for them.