It has to be seen in the context of combined and uneven development. A comparison with the role of gravity in astrophysics and the formation and development of galaxies and so on is also useful. Its not one linear process of gravity pulling all matter together. It forms clumps, and those clumps tend to get bigger, then at various points, the clumps also interact, merge, or else act to pull apart other clumps and so on.
Nation states formed because the laws of commodity production and exchange, via competition led first to the development of capital, and then to the need to form larger single markets, with a level playing field policed by a single state. Then, as capital grew even larger - imperialism - the nation state became a fetter, and larger single markets states were required, formed either by war and annexation, or by voluntary agreement.
The actions of governments, even of the most powerful nation states such as the US, responding to or fermenting nationalist fervour, cannot change those underlying economic laws, and specific laws of capital. But, the way those laws play out is not pre-determined or fixed either. If it was the centripetal forces would already have created a global single market and state, not first nation states, an then multinational states/economic blocs.
I have often wondered why the EU has not developed its own globally competitive leaders in technology, to rival Microsoft etc., and the reason cannot be simply the existing monopolies, or lack of capability. It has and has had large tech companies, like ICL, Siemens, and so on, but it seems that, as with NATO, the EU has simply deferred to, and been happy to sit under the cover of US tech companies. I think the EU is likely to have to respond to Trump, not only in respect to NATO, but also in relation to technology by ending that situation, but as I have written recently the result of that is also likely to be a reorientation of Europe to those regional economic blocs - Eurasia - with which it shares land borders, and geographical proximity, which ha always been the main determinant of trade.
It has to be seen in the context of combined and uneven development. A comparison with the role of gravity in astrophysics and the formation and development of galaxies and so on is also useful. Its not one linear process of gravity pulling all matter together. It forms clumps, and those clumps tend to get bigger, then at various points, the clumps also interact, merge, or else act to pull apart other clumps and so on.
Nation states formed because the laws of commodity production and exchange, via competition led first to the development of capital, and then to the need to form larger single markets, with a level playing field policed by a single state. Then, as capital grew even larger - imperialism - the nation state became a fetter, and larger single markets states were required, formed either by war and annexation, or by voluntary agreement.
The actions of governments, even of the most powerful nation states such as the US, responding to or fermenting nationalist fervour, cannot change those underlying economic laws, and specific laws of capital. But, the way those laws play out is not pre-determined or fixed either. If it was the centripetal forces would already have created a global single market and state, not first nation states, an then multinational states/economic blocs.
I have often wondered why the EU has not developed its own globally competitive leaders in technology, to rival Microsoft etc., and the reason cannot be simply the existing monopolies, or lack of capability. It has and has had large tech companies, like ICL, Siemens, and so on, but it seems that, as with NATO, the EU has simply deferred to, and been happy to sit under the cover of US tech companies. I think the EU is likely to have to respond to Trump, not only in respect to NATO, but also in relation to technology by ending that situation, but as I have written recently the result of that is also likely to be a reorientation of Europe to those regional economic blocs - Eurasia - with which it shares land borders, and geographical proximity, which ha always been the main determinant of trade.