ABSTRACT
There has been a qualitative change in capitalism, stemming from an intensification of crisis that led to the rapidity of globalisation. This tendency toward crisis has become more visible and more intense, evidenced by the increase in the power of finance capital, the changes in the productive use of capital, and the growing integration of the global economy. A dialectical interaction between an increasingly transnational capitalism and the nation-state remains the most fundamental contradiction facing capitalism and the working class in the 21st century.
While the nation-state has been challenged, it continues to inhabit a powerful place, economically, politically, and in its capacity to maintain a false sense of ‘national unity’ among the working class. Capitalist globalisation has intensified social inequality and discontent. Reactions to globalisation and an increased sense of discontent are being increasingly expressed through both left and right-wing populism.
A rise in nationalist sentiment and the return of economic nationalism reflect these unresolved contradictions. There are implicit dangers posed by a resurgence of nationalism, both to capitalism and to the working class.
