Yes, the post-war global order was great for America. And yes, it’s ending. But it’s not ending because of Trump. It’s ending because it was a global order of nation-states. If the nation-state model fades into insignificance, the global order constituted for and by it cracks, as well.
The nation-state as a way of being a country was created to wage war more effectively. Yes, countries existed before, but not like this. The nation-state was also conducive to the development of capitalism in the first stage of capital accumulation. This is why the most prosperous countries today are the ones which formed nation-states the earliest. They had the structures in place that made that previous form of capitalism flourish. It was possible to become a nation-state later and still achieve prosperity but that’s rare. The usual formula is early nation-state = early capitalism = prosperity today.
The nation-state model was so successful at its original purpose of waging war more effectively that it created two world wars. There is such a thing as a bit too much of a good thing, you know? Nation-states needed to do something to tamp down a bit on the warfare aspect and lean more heavily into the prosperity one. So they constituted this post-war global order that everybody is talking about for that purpose. And it worked. Until capitalism entered into a new stage of capital accumulation that doesn’t need the nation-state.
Now, here’s the question of the day. Who reaped the most benefits from the global order created to accommodate the nation-state model of governance by tamping down on its worst aspects and enhancing its best ones?
Would that be the oldest and the most successful nation-state of all which never was anything but a nation-state?
Well, duh.
That would be the great ole US of A which achieved its greatness within the global order of nation-states.
Now, what happens when the nation-state model gives way to a newer, shinier thing? You don’t have to be a genius to clock on to the inevitable rise of a new system of relationships between the newer, shinier things. Different players will relate to each other differently than the previous players.
And who’ll emerge as the winner? Obviously, whoever stops playing the old game the earliest and starts playing the new one first. It is not up to Trump, or Putin, or Xi or any one individual to save or tear apart this system. The whole mentality that this is caused by a single individual is what’s at the bottom of this whole process that I’m describing. The author of the quoted tweet thinks like a neoliberal while bemoaning the results of him, me, Trump, and everybody else being a bloody neoliberal. Self-awareness, as always, is in short supply.
Capitalism entered into a new stage of its development in the late 1970s. Since then, it remade us from the inside. Us, human beings. We started relating to each other and ourselves differently. What we understand as a country is molding to accommodate that different way of being. The relationships between these new models of being a country is changing. Trump is a symptom but he’s not the cause.
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