Last updated on December 31, 2013
This is a post about the emphasis on “culture” and nationalism, and about what it means when the state does the former and pushes the latter.
I have been mulling the contents of this post for a long time — I have been thinking about some of the arguments I am about to in some form or other since I was in college in the late 90s — but I am not sure my point will be the most coherent and clearly argued. But bear with me, first because I think the general point I am about to make is seriously under-appreciated, and because my best posts are usually those that were the most difficult to write.
As you may already know, I grew up in Quebec, where every public policy debate is subordinate to the so-called question nationale (i.e., whether Quebec should secede from the rest of Canada). Consequently, a lot of my thinking on what the state does — and how it does it — has been conditioned by that one example. I realize that one should not generalize from a sample wherein n = 1, but having lived in four other countries (the US, Belgium, Madagascar, and Italy), I do have a bit of a basis for comparison. And before anything else, you may want to read this Economist article on identity politics in Quebec.
Culture and Nationalism
First, let me state that I start from the assumption that the objective of the state is to increase its power by increasing its revenue. A less strict version of this assumption — and one which will essentially lead to the same conclusions — is this: the objective of the state is to maintain its power by maintaining its revenue.
But then, why does the state emphasize cultural arguments and promote nationalism? For two reasons. First, emphasizing culture and promoting nationalism increases people’s willingness to pay taxes. Few people enjoy giving up some of their income to the state, but this might perhaps be tweaked by emphasizing the importance of culture and by promoting nationalism. “Sure, you don’t like giving up part of your income, but it’s an Us-vs.-Them World, and we need you to do your part.” That is the marginal argument for the state promoting nationalism: at the margin, nationalistic policies increase willingness to pay taxes to increase or maintain the state’s power.
Second, emphasizing culture and promoting nationalism means that people are less likely to emigrate. Growing up in Quebec, I have met too many a person who would say something like “I would love to go [study/work] in [the rest of Canada/the US], but my English is not that good.” And indeed, how can one’s English be good when one cannot go to elementary or secondary school in English if neither of one’s parents did not also attend school in English themselves (a measure designed to assimilate immigrants into speaking French and to maintain the presence of French in Quebec). How can one’s English be good when one gets at most three hours of English classes per week, and only starting in the fourth grade at that? That is the infra-marginal argument for the state promoting nationalism: nationalistic policies ensure that people are actually there to pay taxes to increase or maintain the state’s power.
Ultimately, this emphasis on culture and the promotion of nationalism create the equivalent of a prison for a state’s subjects. When people are constantly bombarded by the message that who they are and where they live is so much superior to the rest of the world, people are less likely to go elsewhere to see if life is any better there, they are more likely to stay, and they are more likely to buy into the state’s activities.
There are many reasons to dislike nationalism — four years ago, Ilya Somin summarized many of those reasons in a post titled “Against Nationalism” over at the Volokh Conspiracy — but I don’t recall ever seeing the argument I am making here being made elsewhere. If you do, please leave a reference or hyperlink in the comments.