Why Do the Nations Rage?

Today's political commentators often talk about the odious 19th-century nationalism. At the same time, they must recognise we are not yet rid of this phenomenon in the 21st century. On the contrary, the more the leaders of the political powers try to suppress the nationalism of smaller states, the more those superpowers themselves start to behave like narrow-minded nationalist states. The consequences are known.

Yet there is something good about the competition between nations. This competition has always been a source of progress. In Clearcutting the Earth‎‎,I suggested multinational corporations have made a major contribution to progress. I still mean this, but the greatest leaps in progress have exceeded the capabilities of private capital. They were usually the result of all joint economic forces in a society. Competition between nations was then the engine of progress.

During the Cold War, Russia managed to send a human into space and the United States managed to land a team on the moon. In the new competition between nations, space has regained its prominence, along with cybersecurity. This again leads to great progress in space. We may think of China and India as emerging space nations, but here in the low countries, we are insufficiently aware that Vietnam, Indonesia and Nigeria also belong, even since more than a decade, to the league of space nations. Not sure if I will live to see it, but my kids will normally see the first human appear on Mars. And let's hope that first human being can be male or female.

But even in that odious 19th century, the competition between nations has been fertile. The nations have worked feverishly on a dense rail network that we still use since the Great Continental Railway Journeys, without realizing how much sweat and suffering those railroads have cost. In the 18th century, the competition between nations brought us the road network we have today. In the 16th century, the monarchs competed with detailed maps of their principalities. In the Middle Ages, the cities overwhelmed each other with cathedrals and belfries. They are all realisations on which our daily lives are still built. The competition between nations has brought both suffering and progress.

Photo: Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics 1982 ©Wim Lahaye