I cannot post the following as a thread [body too long]
Patriotism only makes sense in the postcolonial periphery, where the patriotism takes on the particular flavor of national liberation from imperialist meddling in the forms of privatization, comprador regimes, coups, austerity, union busting, looting of natural resources, occupation, "diplomacy" shenanigans at embassies etc.
In the imperial core patriotism is the chauvinist right of the core to extract from the periphery, and to keep the periphery in a state of unequal development. Patriotism therefore, today, does not make sense in an imperial core context. Because the imperial core, despite being the more developed part of the world, constitutes the
historically regressive forces.
However, the imperial core used to be
historically progressive. Not in the moralist sense that the word "progressive" is used in countries like the United States, but in the historical materialist, dialectical materialist, Marxist sense of the word, as in causing historical progress.
When Commodore Matthew Perry forced open the Japanese markets so that US imperialism could gain a foothold in East Asia, that was historically progressive, because it caused the isolationist feudal lords of Japan to rapidly modernize and become capitalist through the Meiji restoration.
Japan, today is a highly developed imperial core nation with a capitalist economy largely as a direct result of the historically progressive role the US played in opening it up to world trade. By bringing the feudal semi-feudal nations into the capitalist fold, the imperial core played a historically progressive role.
Consequently, In that era, patriotism in the imperial periphery had a reactionary character. Those in feudal Japan who sought to resist westernization and to protect the traditional way of life were preventing the evolution of the mode of production from feudalism to capitalism, and therefore preventing "historical progression" as defined above. The historically progressive forces in Japan during the Meiji restoration were the westernizers, not the traditionalists.
Today, it is the reverse. The imperial core no longer develops the periphery that much, but has a mostly extractive relationship with the periphery, one predicated on unequal development. Even if the core and periphery develop at the exact same rate, say 10% increase in GDP (PPP) per year, the periphery will never
catch up to the core. To quote Marx in
Wage Labor and Capital:
>A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal or even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls.
>An appreciable rise in wages presupposes a rapid growth of productive capital. Rapid growth of productive capital calls forth just as rapid a growth of wealth, of luxury, of social needs and social pleasures. Therefore, although the pleasures of the labourer have increased, the social gratification which they afford has fallen in comparison with the increased pleasures of the capitalist, which are inaccessible to the worker, in comparison with the stage of development of society in general. Our wants and pleasures have their origin in society; we therefore measure them in relation to society; we do not measure them in relation to the objects which serve for their gratification. Since they are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch06.htmThe above quote applies to core and periphery just as much as it applies to capitalist and laborer. For the periphery to
catch up with the core, unequal development must be destroyed, and for unequal development to be destroyed, the nations outside of the imperial core must band together in anti-imperialist solidarity, and develop a mode of production that can outcompete capitalism. That is to say: socialism.
We see this fear already existing in the imperial core bourgeoisie, even if you disagree about China being socialist, we have people like Marco Rubio saying "China has found a way to use capitalism against us." and people like Hillary Clinton saying "[China is] a controlled top-down economy, you will never compete and win against them unless you take back the means of production."
So the patriotism in the peripheral nations serves a historically progressive and anti-imperialist purpose of rapidly developing socialism and outcompeting the imperial core. Patriotism in the core his historically regressive and serves the chauvinist purpose of maintaining unequal development which is predicated on post-1991 unipolar hegemony. Multipolarity is not socialism, but it is the destruction of unipolar hegemony, which is a prerequisite for socialism's further development in the periphery. Once Socialism has enough of a foothold in the world and can outcompete capitalism without having to fear imperial hegemony any longer, it is the socialist leaders who will be the Commodore Perrys and the increasingly isolationist and protectionist former imperialist countries (see how the United States is regressing from "Free Trade" dogma into 19th century isolationism and protectionism as it loses its currency hegemony and suffers from inflation and an inability to compete?) will be like feudal Japan, resisting a change in the mode of production.