It’s Time to Separate Racial-ethnicity and State

It is easy to highlight the problems of the nation-state regime, so now let us move to the challenge of building a better government. Before solutions are proposed, we must discuss a few guiding principles to help focus the effort.

It’s Time to Separate Racial-ethnicity and State

Human beings can be classified or grouped in a variety of ways. Some of the most common groupings are listed below:

The boxes highlighted in pink are the key communities that form the nation-state. Religion, while still dominant in some nation-states, has been formally separated from the state in much of the world. There are, however, exceptions to race/ethnicity and geographic location as being the two foundational communities. For example, most nation-states allow immigration, which mixes people from different races and ethnicities into one nation-state. Additionally, some nation-states have administrative authority over satellite locations far from home soil (e.g. the British Virgin Islands approximately 6,000 km from London; Hawaii as a part of America). But in general, a human being’s conception of “where they belong” from an administrative perspective is generally rooted in these two categories.

It is rational for geographic location to form an administrative community as many state functions require people to be in close proximity. These include child education, ensuring water and air quality, and management of public recreation areas, roads, infrastructure, etc. All of these components of a civilization work best when people are close together.

However, a racial-ethnic community as a requirement for an administrative community is much less obvious. What is the rationale for one “German” pooling their tax resources with mostly other “Germans”? Does this produce better administrative outcomes? Would spending programs to feed the hungry be any less effective if a “German” pooled their resources with someone who is “Chinese?” Does a public pension system provide better income security when two “Brazilian’s” pay into the tax pot vs. a “Brazilian” and a “Chilean”? The answer to both of these questions is no, racial-ethnicity makes no difference.

Furthermore, nationalist identities rooted in racial-ethnic tradition are largely inventions of enterprising politicians. So if we are receiving no benefit by organizing ourselves by racial-ethnicity while simultaneously incurring dangerous byproducts (e.g. racial-ethnic hostility and state sponsored racism), why do we continue to do so?

This phenomenon is largely rooted in tradition, and derived from a world where survival depended upon tribal allegiance. Nation is rooted in tribe, and it’s time to retire the tribes. #RetireTheTribes

Sources: Key facts about government-favored religion around the world | https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/03/key-facts-about-government-favored-religion-around-the-world/

National Identity Is Made Up|https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/world/national-identity-myth.html