The demise of the nation state

[CousinIT]

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-rana-dasgupta?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet

. . .

So it is easy to see why western governments are so desperate to prove what everyone doubts: that they are still in control. It is not merely Donald Trump’s personality that causes him to act like a sociopathic CEO. The era of globalisation has seen consistent attempts by US presidents to enhance the authority of the executive, but they are never enough. Trump’s office can never have the level of mastery over American life that Kennedy’s did, so he is obliged to fake it. He cannot make America great again, but he does have Twitter, through which he can establish a lone-gun personality cult – blaming women, leftists and brown people for the state’s impotence. He cannot heal America’s social divisions, but he still controls the security apparatus, which can be deployed to help him look “tough” – declaring war on crime, deporting foreigners, hardening borders. He cannot put more money into the hands of the poor who voted for him, but he can hand out mythological currency instead; even his poorest voters, after all, possess one significant asset – US citizenship – whose value he can “talk up”, as he previously talked up casinos and hotels. Like Putin or Orbán, Trump imbues citizenship with new martial power, and makes a big show of withholding it from people who want it: what is scarcer, obviously, is more precious. Citizens who have nothing are persuaded that they have a lot.

These strategies are ugly, but they cannot simply be blamed on a few bad actors. The predicament is this: political authority is running on empty, and leaders are unable to deliver meaningful material change. Instead, they must arouse and deploy powerful feelings: hatred of foreigners and internal enemies, for instance, or the euphoria of meaningless military exploits (Putin’s annexation of Crimea raised the hugely popular prospect of general Tsarist revival).

But let us not imagine that these strategies will quickly break down under their own deceptions as moderation magically comes back into fashion. As Putin’s Russia has shown, chauvinism is more effective than we like to believe. Partly because citizens are desperate for the cover-up to succeed: deep down, they know to be scared of what will happen if the power of the state is revealed to be a hoax. . . .

[malthaussen]

1. Kind of funny...

... the concept of the "State" has always been winked at by the intellectual types -- cosmopolitanism is more favored than chauvinism -- but now that corporatists are erasing borders, politicians are waving and wearing the flag as never before, while legions of drooling idiots march in step behind them. You'd think that the corporate-owned politicians would promote the corporate line -- but now they need to justify their existence as never before, which puts them in something of a bind.

-- Mal

[BSdetect]

2. Currency trading is the world's biggest business. Its beyond control of any Govt.

More traded each day than the entire GDP of the whole planet for a year.