Paul: > This is the core of my argument for suggesting we are looking > at the rise of "local" (nation) states -- optimal economic > regions, defining optimal in terms of social structures or > regimes of accumulation.
Apparently, we are in agreement, although it appears to me that we still need a narrower definition of what we mean by "optimal". My point was that "optimal" economic regions need not all be "very local", again, without qualifying what "very local" means. "Optimal size" should depend both geographical and historical conditions of the region, which vary from region to region. In certain cases it is possible that a number of "nation states" may choose to merge and in others a "nation state" may choose to split, who knows? One of the questions I have in mind is this: who will write down/define the problem for which an optimal (not necessarily global but at times suboptimal and indeed not necessarily exact but approximate, yet "better") solution is to be found? And the only answer I can come up with to this question is the existing "nation states" or rather, the citizens of the existing "nation states", that is, their elected governments and national assemblies. And given this answer, the strategy I propose to the left is going back to the "national" political scene with a party or a coalition of parties with well-defined social and economic agendas, and biding for the "national" power: something along the lines of the recent German Left Party is trying. If this happens and the Left Parties of the world can unite, then, who knows, maybe they can find an answer to the below question of yours as well: > If there is any truth in this argument, then we have to ask the > question, what supercedes the existing nation states and what > supercedes the inter-national rules now made up of a complex web > of international institutions, controlled for the most part by > the existing US and its subordinate states (in particular, Britain, > Australia, Canada), neo-liberal international treaties and economic > policy institutions (IMF, WB, WTO, NAFTA, etc.), and the big-power > controlled and increasingly neo-liberal United Nations? Best, Sabri
