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Notes -
Free market capitalism and identity
Today I spent some time reading about Georgia Meloni and watching some of her speeches, such as this one. She’s charismatic, but being a rootless global laissez-faire capitalist I am of course not thrilled; anyway, I’d like to offer my perspective on some of the issues raised in her speeches.
It is a natural state of affairs that the governments, by leveraging their capacity for violence, have an enormous power over their citizens and by extension on their businesses; all private organizations are by default subservient to the State.
"Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State" — Benito Mussolini
Diverting from such an arrangement is not trivial. Indeed, how do you stop the people who have, pretty much by definition, overwhelming firepower from using it to take your stuff? One way are the democratic institutions — things like the separation of powers, checks and balances, key positions being elected and therefore held at least somewhat accountable, and so on. All of that works to an extent, but these things are fragile and often not really sufficient.
The other pillar of limiting the power of the govts to control and loot private enterprise, is the competition between different countries. The states themselves can be seen as providers of a certain service — you pay the taxes, and in return get useful things like personal asset protection, arbitrage, infrastructure and so on. As such they are also subject to the market forces. If there are multiple independent offers, and you are free to choose any of them, then in fact you are likely to find a fair deal.
Therefore, in order for the free world to exist it must be possible to change your country at will. It’s easy to see that nationalism runs contrary to this goal. If you only ever can be accepted in one country, if you can only be permitted to run important businesses or organisations in the country of your birth; and doomed to be an irrelevant outsider in all others — well, then your government has you by the balls — you have no real negotiating position with the state.
This reasoning can be extrapolated to other kinds of identity Meloni mentions, to an extent, although of course the most important one of them by far is the national identity. But I disagree that the capitalist’s goal is to destroy identities. It is only necessary for them to be made interchangeable.
If anything capitalism served to amplify and increase the adoption of certain cultural elements, think the Italian cuisine or the Japanese animation. I know what you’re going to say — that it’s not real, it’s superficial, it’s commoditized and the real national identity is something else entirely. Well, it is. The real national idea, the one you’re left with when the music stops, is always to force you to surrender everything you have to the state and to go die in the trenches for no good reason, ostensibly as a sacrifice to your country. Perhaps it’s for the best if we abandon that.
First off, I suppose I should thank you for taking the mask off, if only for a moment.
But having said that the obvious counter argument is having admitted that you feel no particular sense of loyalty and are only shopping around for who ever will give you the best price, and will ditch them in a heartbeat should a better deal come along, why should anyone give you that deal? Having effectively announced your intention to defect in the any subsequent prisoners dilemma, why would you expect anyone to cooperate with you? It seems to me that your fall into the same trap that pretty much all utopians from a progressive background seem to fall into. An inability or unwillingness to consider the possibility of multiple agents.
I kind of touched on this in my reply to @sliders1234 below, but if an identity can be changed at will it ceases to be meaningful as an identity. If an if an identity can be changed at will, what obligation does anyone else have to honor it? The answer of course is "none", because an contract that can be broken on a whim without consequence is no contract, and that's what this is really about. The Free-rider problem. You want to enjoy the privileges of membership in a tribe or nation without having to bear the associated responsibilities.
Why should a Nation confer identity?
Think of it from an analogy of the corporate world. Some companies attract talent by paying them a lot of money. Some do it by fostering an identity; "We are all a family here". I think to very many people it's evident that the former is a more 'honest' portrayal of the transaction/relation than the latter. If anything it's a meme that companies that tout a "family environment" are to be avoided because they are probably shortchanging you in what you want mostly from them, money.
In the same vein, why shouldn't a nation be just a place you live in? If you look at immigration trends (revealed preferences), its not that people want to move to the countries that give them the strongest national identity, but the countries that give them the best place to live in. I'm pretty sure more people want to move to America than China.
Buying into any form of national loyalty means the nation can effectively have an easier time short changing you, they can send you to the trenches, they can loot you of your earnings and yada yada.
In short; Why shouldn't a market system apply when choosing a place to live? Why not have competition in this domain? I think putting national identity above how good it is to live in a nation is putting the cart before the horse. Is voting with your feet/money not that much more powerful than just voting?
This is your position disguised as your opponents' position.
"Companies are not really like families" doesn't mean that families aren't real. It means that families that are as easy to change as changing your company, aren't real. And you're the one in favor of easy changes.
I don't see how its in contradiction to what I said. I am stating quite precisely that your nation should be easy to change. Because under that system Nations have an impetus to not shortchange their citizens (residents) too much.
Loyalty to a Nation is well and good if you actually like you Country. The founding fathers were loyal to America for the same reasons they were disloyal to England.
As an individual who wants to live a good life "fuck you I'm leaving" is much more appealing to me than "I'll stay here and fight with everything I have to make it better".
I can go fight and make somewhere else better. Respect should be bidirectional after all. Why be loyal to that who wrongs you? Would you be singing the same tune were you a part of a nation that hated you and your values?
What do we define as "shortchanging"? Restrictions under the law? Or just feeling like you aren't respected?
Someone could make the cheap counterargument that any corporate actor could just leave a country that has strict and well-enforced laws around dumping and pollution.
In addition, one could also argue that we have seen what happens when countries are sorted across values (India/Pakistan, the Balkan nations). Who is to say that nations becoming Red-Tribe-istan and Blue-Tribe-istan is possible, or even good?
I'm aware of Scott's Archipelago, but I also suspect it might only work in a world that doesn't have any historical context/baggage associated with our real-life one.
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