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Why are There Nation-State Instead of a World-State?

Summary/Abstract: This article critically examines the answers to the following questions: “Why are there nation-states?”, i.e. “Why isn’t there only one nation-state?”, asked by Jacques Bidet in his work General Theory of Modernity. In the first part of the article, Bidet’s analogy between the emergence of nation-states and more complex states such as the EU is discussed, with particular emphasis on the possibilities of creating a worldwide democratic state, which Bidet innovatively conceives as a guarantee of equality between nations. Still, in view of the normative character of Bidet’s theory, the author raises doubts about the possibility of clarifying Bidet’s assertion that “the time has not yet come for a universal state-order”. In the second part of the article, the author attempts to find an answer to Bidet’s questions with the help of Marx’s class analysis. On the one hand, such an analysis makes it possible to explain why (worldwide) capitalism benefits from “freezing” the extant order of nation-states. On the other hand, not even Marx’s analysis makes it possible to elucidate the conditions for building a worldwide state, particularly the one condition which Bidet cares about most of all: a relation between nations characterised by equality and lack of rivalry.

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