https://johnmenadue.com/the-nation-state-is-on-the-skids/

>The 21st Century is changing much about the world that humans take for granted. Among the more shocking possibilities is that it will sound the death-knell of the nation-state as the main instrument of human self-governance.

>However, certain currents are now established in the stream of history whose confluence threatens to engulf the nation as an entity. Everywhere. And it is time we discuss the possibility, rather than assume that everything will remains the same, forever.

>The first of these gigantic currents is the rise and rise of transnational businesses, whose individual economic might now exceeds that of all but the largest nations. These self-governed entities – they are nearly all autocracies despite the occasional shareholder meeting – now dominate more than half the world economy and do pretty much as they choose. They buy and sell governments. They bend, break and amend the laws of nation states more or less at will. And they pay only a whisker of their fair share of taxes.

>The second current is the defiance of regulation. National governments can no longer control these giant businesses as they skip adroitly between jurisdictions.

>A third reason that the nation state is in trouble is the rise of social media. Yes, social media, that font of trivia and vapid opinion, is rapidly becoming more potent as a determinant of political outcomes than the creaking ‘power centres’... It is particularly susceptible to well-poisoning by fossil fuel companies and other manipulators, with their armies of bots and ‘useful idiots’.

>A fourth reason why governments are failing is their growing impotence.

>A fifth reason nation states are crumbling is refugeeism.

>For all their patriotic sentiments, flag-waving and anthems, nations have basically been a poor idea. Since the 1850s they’ve slaughtered around 200 million humans – mostly civilians – in their wars. More, even, than religions. And it wasn’t the people who started these wars – it was their governments (almost universally male)... Their predilection for mass murder is a purely masculine attribute. None of their wars were started by women – a substantive argument to make women leaders of everything. If humans wish to survive, that is.

>The most important thing for people to realise is that nations, individually and collectively, do not have the answers to the existential crisis now facing humanity. They are too selfish, too parochial in their thinking, too politically compromised, too argumentative, too anachronistic. They are an ugly, brutal phase in our history – not a solution to our future. They need to get out of the way. People who cling to nationalistic ideals need to grow up and face reality.

#FsckPatriarchy #fsckALLreligion #NationStates #ChangeTheSystem