Nationalism is Washed
A Response to Tony Chamas
Recently, Tony Chamas wrote a piece calling for nationalist internationalism. I think this piece merits a direct response. There are many people I find smart and interesting who argue that the nation remains important.1 A variety of compelling arguments are made by Tony and by others in this vein. Modern democracy has only ever operated at the level of the nation-state. There is no demos at the supranational level, and there’s no possibility that one could form, because a national demos requires a greater level of homogeneity than is possible among people who speak different languages. I think these claims are true.
But here’s the rub—national demoi no longer exist. In modern liberal political theory, the unity of the nation is grounded on the participation of the citizens in labor and exchange. Labor and exchange generate a common moral sensibility, and the state then reflects that moral sensibility. This allows the state to represent the nation even though most of the citizens are only marginally participatory in its politics, particularly when compared with ancient republics. The supranationalization that has occurred since 1945 has not produced a supranational demos, but it has had other effects. Since 1945, it has become much less clear that labor and exchange are sufficient to generate the common moral sensibility that sustains the appearance of a national demos. What’s more, the civil-social organizations that previously helped to supplement labor and exchange now increasingly seem to contribute to the fragmentation of the national demos.
Now it might be argued that national demoi need to be grounded on something that goes beyond labor and exchange. Conservative nationalists often argue that there must be additional civic, linguistic, religious or ethnic criteria. If we need agreement on these further things, then it is even harder to substantiate the existence of a national demos. For our purposes today, I will assume it would be enough to have a common moral sensibility grounded on labor and exchange. This is to the advantage of the nationalists—if a national demos only requires a common moral sensibility, then it can be had even if there is substantial divergence at other levels. My claim is quite strong. I am arguing that even if a national demos requires only a common moral sensibility grounded in shared participation in labor and exchange (and nothing else), it is no longer possible. From the standpoint of Marxism, it might even be said that I am arguing not only that the nation is washed, but that society is washed. By “washed,” I mean that these abstractions are exhausted and no longer functional.
This might sound a little abstract. Here are a few of the concrete reasons I think nationalism doesn’t work anymore:
The labor force participation rate has stalled out and begun declining. There is now a large part of the population in rich countries that does not participate in the labor force and which is unemployable, in the sense that employers see nothing to gain from hiring this part of the population. As these people do not participate in labor, they do not fully enter into national common sense. Attempts to force these people back into the labor force are unsuccessful (and often quite seriously inhumane). These people can still participate in exchange through their consumption, contributing price signals to markets, but this consumptive activity does not seem to lead to nationalist commitment.
The percentage of the global population that receives university socialization has increased dramatically. The university-socialized population has much weaker national commitment. At the same time, it does not constitute a viable supranational demos. It is too large to sustain national demoi, but too small to be the basis for a supranational demos. There are now attempts underway to reform university systems to produce university-educated people who are more nationalistic in outlook, but there is no reason to believe this will be particularly successful.
New technology has created digital subjects who are considerably more atomized and more skeptical of national and religious authorities. This includes many people who have not received university socialization, and its effects are felt particularly strongly by those who are no longer in the labor force. Many of these subjects are extremely online, in the sense that they are more committed to niche fandoms than they are to the nation. These fandoms often involve quite serious interest in other parts of the world that cannot be blithely dismissed. Such interests are not enough to give rise to a supranational demos, but they do weaken national commitment. Digital subjectivity also weakens civil-social organizing, further contributing to the NGO-ification of the third sector (it corporatizes and becomes dependent on donors rather than members).
The collapse of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union deprived opponents of liberalism with a credible positive politics. This prevents these critics from posing a credible revolutionary threat. Without this threat, it ceased to be politically necessary to curate a common national culture. Indeed, from the standpoint of many political actors, it became strategic to engage in activity that is divisive and which further fragments the culture. This results in something I call “deep pluralism,” the spread of disagreement into more and more areas of life, resulting in deep disagreements not merely about morality and politics but also about epistemology and aesthetics. It becomes impossible to agree on a common set of facts, and public culture is riven with disgust interactions—everyone is always finding everyone else to be cringe, to be painfully uncool. And yet no one is able to substantiate new shared norms. This has contributed, for instance, to the breakdown in the ability of people all over the world to successfully date one another and reproduce. It also makes a thick national identity impossible for many parts of the population, which become painfully estranged from national symbology.
New technology also allows politics to operate with an increasing speed, making it difficult for political events to be processed through a deliberative mode or remembered. It becomes difficult to distinguish which events are meaningful, and even journalists and academics struggle to meaningfully curate events. Often, the news that matters and the news that can be profitably covered have nothing to do with each other. Citizens are made into passive consumers of news entertainment, reducing their epistemic capabilities and making it more difficult for them to form a coherent democratic will. Content creators no longer try to form a coherent democratic will, because this cannot be done and there’s no money in it, anyway. Instead, they contribute to deep pluralism, cultivating niche fanbases.
A system of global trade has developed that imposes enormous costs on any political actor who tries to break free from supranational institutions, in the form of increased bond yields, runs on currency, elevated inflation, or elevated unemployment. Attempts by the United States to reconfigure the trade relationship with China via unilateral activity have not been successful, and attempts to exit organizations like the European Union quickly become associated with economic malaise. This not only undermines nationalism, it also undermines attempts to restructure the international system on a national basis. It generates a felt sense that national identity is anachronistic.
So, while it might readily be acknowledged that supranational structures are not democratic in important senses, this does not mean there is a national demos to which we may return. During the period in which supranational structures have been in operation, the national demoi have been considerably fractured and weakened. Moreover, this has happened in and through the process of modernization. The same forces that brought about the appearance of viable national demoi have, over time, destroyed that appearance. The forces we’re talking about—trade, atomization, collapse of retrograde alternative regimes, new technology, the growth of higher education—all of these things are quintessentially modern. We are not in postmodernity, we are in a kind of hypermodernity in which the political and social structures associated with high modernity no longer function.
Hypermodernity cannot be undone or reversed. A way forward would have to be compatible with hypermodern conditions. And, this means, very centrally, deep pluralism—there will be no return to the functional level of homogeneity necessary for national demoi. That means that there will be no return to modern democracy. We are in a period where the term “democracy” can only be used to describe our form of regime if it is reduced to something like “competitive multiparty elections” where “multiparty” means “there are at least two parties that can win, so incumbents fear defeat”. Such a regime has certain negative advantages (you can use the elections to let off steam or to peacefully eject a government that makes very blatant mistakes). But it cannot be used to emancipate people or to promote fairness or justice. It makes it very difficult to build a new international system, because its electoral mechanisms prevent serious, sustained experimentation.
Of course, Tony is right to point out that we do, nonetheless, live in a world of states. These states may not be able to credibly claim to be operating on the basis of the will of national demoi, but they are the preponderant political actors in the world today. This should be grappled with—states should be closely studied, and the no one should imagine that they will just disappear. Indeed, most of the activity that drives change in the world today is still state activity. But this state activity is defined primarily by its limits—by what it cannot do, rather than by what it can do. The most significant events, each year, are the moments that reveal the incapacities of states.
There are several things that can happen when states are unable to act:
Social organizations can step in to fill the gap. But these organizations are increasingly NGO-ified, as citizens become atomized and less capable of socially intervening. So, often, they prove insufficient.
States can create (or permit others to create) new supranational structures to perform the functions they are unable to perform. But because there is no supranational demos, there is no enthusiasm for further supranationalization, and it proves very difficult to legitimate it. I still think there’s a case for supranationalization that would support the return of local politics, but it’s very difficult to motivate people to support these kinds of proposals, because people understandably suspect that these proposals will be authoritarian, despite sincere reassurances from very educated people.
States can attempt to change their internal structures to increase their capacity. They can concentrate power in their executive branches to make it easier to take decisions, or they can centralize power to ensure these decisions are rapidly rolled out across the whole of their territories. But often, national commitment is too weak to support these moves, and states are pushed instead to decentralize power (see, e.g., British PM Andy Burnham’s devolution plans— “Manchesterism”) or accept checks on executive preferences from technocratic central banks, judicial bodies, legislatures, regional or local governments, etc.
States can use war to break constraints. For instance, they can reconfigure supply chains it would otherwise be difficult to disrupt, or they can use war to push through procedural reforms that would otherwise face considerable domestic resistance.
States can simply fail to act, and the consequences of not doing things can pile up and create a complicated mess, analogous to the mess faced by traditional regimes that were unable to adapt to modernity (e.g., imperial China).
I think we are going to mostly get #5, with a little bit of #4 at the margins (see, e.g., Ukraine, Iran). Right now, I am studying these cases of inaction to sort out how these different approaches might be combined in different areas.
But one thing I am quite sure of at this stage is that, as far as modern democracy goes, the way is shut—there is no possibility that modern democracy will make any kind of comeback. That form of regime is too anachronistic to compete in hypermodernity. Democracy only continues in a pathetic, debilitated form.2
Nationalism is still invoked from time to time, but it appeals to an increasingly narrow niche and takes on the character of something subcultural. Often, expressions of nationalism are now ironic or post-ironic in character. Most of the people who express nationalist sentiments are no longer willing to make major life sacrifices for the sake of the nation, because it is increasingly impossible to sincerely believe (in the way that people did in the 20th century) that the concept of the nation still has meaningful content for which one ought to be willing to fight and die.
For these reasons it is important to states that they find ways to reduce reliance on mass mobilization armies, in favor of a more automated military that can draw upon the minor, idiosyncratic or impoverished parts of the population that can still be persuaded to serve. Manufacturing consent becomes increasingly unnecessary, as the military can operate without the support of increasingly broad sections of the population. It’s for this reason that 20th century theories of the role of the media in legitimating military conflict have become vestigial.
I sympathize with people who hold the kind of position Tony holds. Certainly, it’s very understandable to want there to be a demos at some level or other. But this is gone now—the 21st century will be marked not by the presence of nations or of demoi, but by their absence. It has been one of the central goals of my work to get people to recognize this aspect of our situation and tarry with it. If there is a return to states, it will be a return to states. There won’t be any democratic consolation. We must create a new alternative to modern democracy. If we do not, there will be more war, and we will end up like the Ming.
Most notably, Dirk Jörke, The Size of Democracy: On the Spatial Dimension of Governance and Participation (Suhrkamp, 2019); Wolfgang Streeck, Taking Back Control?: States and State Systems After Globalism (Verso, 2024).
See Dirk Jörke and Benjamin Studebaker, “Debilitated Democracy: When the Legs Get Ripped Off,” The European Journal of Social Theory (2025): https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310251393914