By Dr. M. Dunn (A) Nationalism (1) As workers, entrepreneurs, renters, homeowners, retirees, students, teachers, taxpayers, politicians, etc. people differ socially and pursue different and in many cases conflicting interests. The social relation between a worker and capitalist employer in America is characterized by the same class conflict as in Britain, Germany or elsewhere. The social relation between a tenant and the homeowner is the same independent whether they live in America, Britain or Japan. Nationalists declare all these material interests and social conflicts, circumstances of life, their opinions and beliefs to be less significant when they emphasize their affection for their home country, take pride in being an American, German etc.. By doing so, they postulate a commonality of and between all compatriots independent of all personal conflicts and social antagonisms which characterize their daily life. (2) The fact that nationalists identify themselves with thei...
Marx and Engels are often seen as being interchangeable and in absolute agreement about all topics. It is assumed there were no differences between them because they closely collaborated and indeed had plenty of agreements. Nonetheless, there were differences. When it comes to the discussions you find about Freedom and Equality, it is usually said without much deliberation that M and E saw socialism as the true fulfillment of the ideals of the French revolution: liberty, equality, fraternity and democracy. This became something repeated throughout the history of the communist movement, shared by stalinists, trotskyists, Bernstein, Kautsky, even today in marxist-humanists, the Frankfurt school, and so on. Socialism naturally is a product of modernity, the enlightenment, liberalism. The bourgeois revolutions overthrew the old class hierarchies between "freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman" and so on, but: "The modern bourg...