ABSTRACT
If human beings are to develop a politics able to regulate a globalised economy they need to recognise that they now have universal practical exigencies as human beings, not simply national ones as ‘Americans’ or ‘Indians’ or ‘Germans’, etc. Such exigencies can only be recognised intellectually, not from day-to-day experience. Also, the ‘asocial individualism’ which marks some (not most) modern capitalist societies can make capitalism – let alone global capitalism – disappear from consciousness. However, the continual malfunctioning of an unregulated globalised capitalism continually weakens both these obstacles. Also, human beings have made a similar transition before, in creating nation-states. Moving from localism to nationalism required them to come, over time, to see forms of political organisation they had barely imagined possible as just practical exigencies. They can therefore move from nationalism to globalism in the same way. In fact, in a globalised economy an effective nationalism requires a globalist commitment as well. But seeing such truths and acting upon them involves imagination and political will far more than mere knowledge.
