Why did nations come to be the basic units of politics in Europe?
Europe has not always been divided into nations. For hundreds of years, the land-mass now known under this name was inhabited by societies, formed by kin and community, family connections and small groups, each with their own norms and customs. Today, the region could not be more different – approximately fifty separate countries, populated by millions of individuals – some fiercely national, others predominantly international. Each country has a set of norms and customs - a stereotyped image of what it means to be a part of that nation. While these images are not necessarily accurate, it is vital that we understand how they, and the nations that they are based on, have been formed. Indeed, it is correct to speak of nations in terms of ‘images’ – as Anderson rightly states, a nation is ‘an imagined political community’ (Anderson, 2006: 6) – exactly how these imagined communities have come to be formed, and accepted, is of crucial importance. Although there are a number of explanations for the formation of nations in Europe, such as Gellner’s mass education theory and Smith’s bureaucracy and corporation theory, it is Anderson’s print capitalism and vernacular mobilisation argument that is arguably most convincing. Language - the primary method of communication and hence relationship formation is crucial in the development of the nation-state – how else is it possible to form identity across thousands of miles of terrain and millions of people. But language could not develop such an identity alone – capitalism, the system through which society functions, was integral to the development of nations in Europe, unifying languages through the printing press in a drive to increase profit. Though mass education and bureaucracy were instrumental in the formation of nations, they both rely on either a shared vernacular or capitalism, and in such, it was the combination of language and capitalism that resulted in nations becoming the basic units of politics in Europe. To fully understand why nations came to be the basic units of politics in Europe, we must explore these factors.
Gellner’s theory of the importance of mass education in the formation of nations as political units in Europe is, to a certain extent, convincing. He argues that industrial societies required mass education, a literate population with a standardised language, able to communicate effectively to ensure that capitalism could continue to develop - that the ability to communicate with others in the same vernacular was of crucial importance in the development of capitalist society. Capitalist growth requires constant innovation and occupational change (Gellner, 2006: 140) – two factors that are enabled through education. However, although education was undoubtedly vital in this process, we must look further, and appreciate that for education to be possible, societies had to have a unified language. Gellner’s premise that nations required mass education is not incorrect, but it does not take the requirements of nation formation far enough – nations needed mass language to join all the small, ‘real’ communities together, into one imagined nation. Indeed, despite the fact that only the state was big enough to satisfy this need to educate a large population (Gellner, 2006: 141), arguably, it was capitalism that was motivated enough and strong enough to create the language used to educate these populations. Without print capitalism unifying various languages into a common vernacular to sell printed texts for increased profit, and without the ability to communicate through language in the first place, mass education would not have been possible. Despite being a factor, mass education was only possible because of capitalism’s unification of vernacular, and consequently only a factor in the formation of nations as the basic political units in Europe.
There are similar flaws in Smith’s bureaucracy and corporation theory, because, again, this theory requires capitalism. Smith, and Anderson, argues that some states may have been playing an important role in shaping national identity, (Anderson 2006) (Smith, 1991) however, such efforts were not in the form of a nationalist policy, but were more an administrative convenience, a method used by the state to manage individuals. Interestingly, in his account of the language politics of India, Robert King states that the ‘improvement in the Indian linguistic scene will continue largely independently of what governments do or do not do’ and that ‘the ability of governments to effect fundamental changes in the linguistic habits of those they govern is greatly overestimated’ (King, 1997: xi) – highlighting the limitations of bureaucratic state power. Within politics, particularly in democratic politics, many feel that they have a choice in whether they agree with the ruling order – whereas in economics, the financial element is more restricting – individuals are constrained by virtue of the fact that they obtain their income from the system – if they want to survive, they must comply. Arguably, if there is little binding one to the state, there is little inclination to comply with its orders, making it a less convincing argument in the formation of nations in Europe. Hobsbawm highlights the importance of ‘invented’ public traditions in the formation of nations - three innovations: primary education, public ceremonies and the mass production of public monuments (Hobsbawm, 1983: 271) were integral in the invention of tradition – it is vital that we remember that without the capitalist unification of various vernaculars, it would have been impossible to form such innovations. A common vernacular, formed by the process of capitalism, in that it enabled a vast number of individuals and groups to communicate, is at the centre of the formation of nations in Europe.
It is when looking at print capitalism and language that we are best able, as Anderson argues, to ‘consider what gave these cultural systems their self-evident plausibility (Anderson, 2006: 12). Indeed, Anderson states in his print capitalism argument that three things come together: firstly the capitalist relations of production in the book industry, secondly the emergence of printing technology and finally the fatality of linguistic diversity - range of diverse languages that blurred in and out of each other (Anderson, 2006). This argument is reflected in Hobsbawm, who argues that ‘a common language, especially when forced into print, acquired a new fixity which made it appear more permanent and hence more 'eternal' than it really was’ (Hobsbawm, 1992: 61) – in connecting language with the central form of economic distribution – how individuals receive their income, it obtains this exacerbated ‘eternal’ state described by Hobsbawm. Of course, in the same sense that Durkheim argues ‘Things are good because we like them, rather than we like them because they are good’ (Durkheim: 1984, 40), language is only able to function when the majority of people agree on the terms and their uses. In making it difficult for individuals or groups to object to the chosen language, it is possible for it to acquire this fixivity. It is important to note that it is not simply the commonality of language that resulted in the formation of nations, but what the function that language was able to perform. Hobsbawm highlights the fact that ‘language was merely one, and not necessarily the primary, way of distinguishing between cultural communities’ (Hobsbawm, 1992: 58), and though this is a valid point, the power that language has in shaping images and communicated ideas cannot be denied. Indeed, Hobsbawm goes on to state that ‘language creates a community’ (Hobsbawm, 1992: 59) and Anderson notes that ‘print-capitalism, made it possible for rapidly growing numbers of people to think about themselves, and to relate themselves to others, in profoundly new ways’ (Anderson, 2006: 36) – that both language and print capitalism were necessary in the formation of nations in Europe.
Language or print capitalism alone would not have been able to form nations – for a nation to be formed and accepted, a tool and a method were necessary – the tool being language and the method, print capitalism. Capitalism, to profit from the tools of the newly developed printing press, had to assemble larger related dialects into print languages, which laid the basis for national consciousness, giving fixity to language. Capitalists, in their desire for profit, but in the context of ‘a Europe-wide shortage of money’ thought ‘more and more of peddling cheap editions in the vernaculars, not just Latin speakers’ (Anderson, 2006: 38). However, it is not as simple as capitalists printing books with a common language – the power of the print-capitalism was that it was ‘possible for rapidly growing numbers of people to think about themselves, and to relate themselves to others, in profoundly new ways’ (Anderson, 2006: 36) – through novels, newspapers and other written texts, people were able to learn about events in the lives of others, and shape a common understanding of history, rather than an awareness bounded predominantly by class and one’s immediate surroundings. As Gellner states, ‘contrary to what Marxism has led people to expect, it is pre-industrial society which is addicted to horizontal differentiation within societies, whereas industrial society strengthens the boundaries between nations, rather than those between classes’ (Gellner, 2006: 12) – the formation of nations was only possible in a time of societal change, as populations ceased to be so vertically stratified, thanks to the ability to communicate en-masse and the changing nature of societal structure due to capitalism.
Basing nations in economics, linking statehood with the market fundamentals of a society, makes it difficult for individuals to reject order, forcing participation in the formation of the nation. Indeed, as Durkheim states, ‘Not conforming to ordinary conventions provokes amusement, shame and embarrassment.’ (Durkheim: 1982, 50), tying identity with a source of income is particularly powerful as it prevents people from objecting, as they are often bound to an organisation as a source of employment. Carr emphasises this point when he states that the phenomenon of nationalism ‘cannot be understood without examination of the three main underlying causes which provoked it: the bringing of new social strata within the effective membership of the nation the visible reunion of economic with political power, and the increase in the number of nations’ (Carr, 1945: 18). Thinking about recent questions surrounding nations – it is interesting that after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, questions about nationality have resurfaced, with many across Europe, but notably in both Catalonia and Scotland, pressing for changes to their national status. The relationship between the economic and the political remains – the extension of nationalism ‘from the political to the economic sphere through the reassertion of political power over economic policy’ (Carr, 1945: 20) is true of the debate over Scottish Independence – with many casting their vote based on economic concerns. The fact that questions about identity are increasingly common in the midst of economic problems illustrates the strong relationship between the nations and the capitalist system – that nationality, identity and economy continue to be intrinsically linked.
Today, Europe is a continent that has overcome a chequered history of conflicting regions to form a European Union. Yet, nations remain. It is easy to become embroiled in questions of exactly how nations are structured today, and have our understanding of how nations were formed clouded by the complexities and contradictions of modern nation states in Europe. However, we must remember that nations in Europe were formed predominantly by the combination of capitalism and language. As Calhoun states, ‘more and more of social life took place through forms of mediation – market, communications, technologies and bureaucracies’ (Calhoun, 1997: 68). Though he states that these ‘removed relationships from the realm of direct, face-to-face interaction’ (Deutsch 1966; Calhoun 1992), arguably, language and capitalism radically enhanced our ability to communicate and form relationships, enabling people to share identities across thousands of miles. In the formation of nations, there has to be a central driver, a unifier – there is no better method than capitalism in coercing individuals into a collective and no better tool than a common vernacular, which, through the vehicle of print capitalism aided by mass education – is an effective way of influencing and managing people. The formation of nations as the basic political units in Europe would not have been possible without the common vernaculars that arose from the development of print capitalism.
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