Internationalism is a movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all. Partisans of this movement, such as supporters of the World Federalist Movement, claim that nations should cooperate because their long-term mutual interests are of greater value than their individual short term needs. Internationalism is another reaction of the same general kind - and to the very same general circumstances. Like nationalism, it is far more ambiguous and complicated than the self-image in which it lives. Capitalist internationality generated both nationalism and internationalism, in fact, and since the rise and fall of Napoleons French Revolutionary Empire these political world-views have existed in permanent, uneasy tension with one another. Internationalism is by nature opposed to ultranationalism, jingoism and national chauvinism.Internationalism teaches that the people of all nations have more in common than they do differences, and thus that nations should treat each other as equals. The term internationalism is often wrongly used as a synonym for cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanist is also sometimes used as a term of abuse for internationalists. Internationalism is not necessarily anti-nationalism, as in the Peoples Republic of China and Stalinist countries. In nineteenth century Britain there was a liberal internationalist strand of political thought epitomized by Richard Cobden and John Bright. Cobden and Bright were against the protectionist Corn Laws and in a speech at Covent Garden on September 28, 1843 Cobden outlined his utopian brand of internationalism: Free Trade! What is it? Why, breaking down the barriers that separate nations; those barriers behind which nestle the feelings of pride, revenge,hatred and jealously, which every now and then burst their bounds and deluge whole countries with blood... Cobden therefore believed that Free Trade would pacify the world by interdependence, an idea also expressed by Adam Smith in his The Wealth of Nations and common to many liberals of the time. A belief in the idea of the moral law and an inherent goodness in human nature also inspired their faith in internationalism. The first international organisation in the world was the Inter-Parliamentary Union, established in 1889 by Frédéric Passy from France andWilliam Randal Cremer from the United Kingdom. It was envisioned as a permanent forum for political multilateral negotiations. The League of Nations was formed after World War One in an attempt to solve the worlds security problems through international arbitration and dialogue. J. A. Hobson, a Gladstonian liberal who became a socialist after the Great War, anticipated in his book Imperialism (1902) the growth of international courts and congresses which would hopefully settle international disputes between nations in a peaceful way. Sir Norman Angell in his work The Great Illusion (1910) claimed that the world was united by trade, finance, industry and communications and that therefore nationalism was an anachronism and that war would not profit anyone involved but would only result in destruction. Sovereign nations vs. supernational powers balance Internationalism, in the strict meaning of the word, is still based on the existence of sovereign nations. Its aims are to encourage multilateralism (world leadership not held by any single country) and create some formal and informal interdependence between countries, with some limited supranational powers given to international organisations controlled by those nations via intergovernmental treaties and institutions. The ideal of many internationalists, among them world citizens, is to go a step further towards democratic globalization by creating a world government. However, this idea is opposed and/or thwarted by other internationalists, who believe any World Government body would be inherently too powerful to be trusted, or because they dislike the path taken by supranational entities such as the United Nations or the European Union and fear that a world government inclined towards fascism would emerge from the former. These internationalists are more likely to support a loose world federation in which most power resides with the national governments.
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 07:52:33 +0000
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