"Today, Bauer’s work is immediately relevant to our thinking on multiculturalism, of which it can be seen as a precursor. To be clear, Bauer’s central argument is to reject any essentialist principle in the conceptualization of the national question. For Bauer, we cannot think of modern nations in terms of “metaphysical theories” (such as notions of national spiritualism) or “voluntaristic theories” (as in Ernest Renan’s theory of the nation as a “daily plebiscite”). National identities are not “naturally given” and invariable but are rather culturally changeable.
However, Bauer’s approach to the nation-state is very different from the dominant liberal one today. In the liberal nation-state, it is the cultural practice of the dominant national group that prevails. Multiculturalism is thus always limited by this hegemony and multicultural states cannot easily be constructed. Any commitment to cultural pluralism can amount to little more than a token commitment to diversity within overwhelmingly assimilationist structures.
Bauer criticized the attitude of the early 1900s “German Austrian” workers’ movement as a “naïve cosmopolitanism” which rejected national struggles as diversionary and advocated a humanistic world citizenship as its alternative. There were clear echoes of this attitude in the promotion of “global cosmopolitanism” during the early 2000s. In that sense, we very much need a Bauer 2.0 to move beyond such naïve and complacent indifference to the national question today.
Bauer fundamentally disagreed with the idea that the national movements were simply an obstacle for the class struggle and that internationalism was the only way forward. He was convinced that it was only the working class that could create the conditions for the development of a nation, proclaiming that “the international struggle is the means that we must use to realize our national ideal.”"
https://jacobin.com/2023/11/otto-bauer-austro-marxism-nationalism-theory-history
#Nationalism #History #Marxism #Multiculturalism #Socialism
However, Bauer’s approach to the nation-state is very different from the dominant liberal one today. In the liberal nation-state, it is the cultural practice of the dominant national group that prevails. Multiculturalism is thus always limited by this hegemony and multicultural states cannot easily be constructed. Any commitment to cultural pluralism can amount to little more than a token commitment to diversity within overwhelmingly assimilationist structures.
Bauer criticized the attitude of the early 1900s “German Austrian” workers’ movement as a “naïve cosmopolitanism” which rejected national struggles as diversionary and advocated a humanistic world citizenship as its alternative. There were clear echoes of this attitude in the promotion of “global cosmopolitanism” during the early 2000s. In that sense, we very much need a Bauer 2.0 to move beyond such naïve and complacent indifference to the national question today.
Bauer fundamentally disagreed with the idea that the national movements were simply an obstacle for the class struggle and that internationalism was the only way forward. He was convinced that it was only the working class that could create the conditions for the development of a nation, proclaiming that “the international struggle is the means that we must use to realize our national ideal.”"
https://jacobin.com/2023/11/otto-bauer-austro-marxism-nationalism-theory-history
#Nationalism #History #Marxism #Multiculturalism #Socialism
Otto Bauer’s Theory of Nationalism Is One of Marxism’s Lost Treasures
Critics of Marxism say it cannot explain why nationalism is such a powerful force in the modern world.jacobin.com
