Beware of the National-Borders Talk Starting Now about How to End the Ukraine-Russia War

National borders and national sovereignty are just not a thing in an egalitarian world. Local Sovereignty of Egalitarians IS a Thing!

The discourse just starting now about how to end the Ukraine-Russia war is all about where national borders should be drawn. Beware of this inherently anti-egalitarian discourse!

Maps of Ukraine from this article

We’ve all grown up thinking of the planet’s land mass as made up of nations with borders like those pictured at the top of this article. We’re used to the idea of disagreement about where exactly the borders should be. We’re even used to the idea that a certain nation should not exist at all, or that a new nation should be created somewhere. We’re used to the idea that maps like the one above should or could change in regards to the exact regions of nations and the names of nations. But we’re NOT used to the idea that the world’s land mass will not be divided into nations at all.

I suggest, however, that we start to get used to the idea of a no-nations world. Here’s why.

Let’s start with the key definition of a nation, as shown on a typical map. Such a nation is a geographical region over which some single organization—called the government—has a monopoly of violence. This organization, in other words, has the final say in what goes. It makes the laws, which means it has the power to enforce its will on everybody in the given region with the credible threat of violence or imprisonment as necessary, and nobody has violence at their disposal superior to that of this organization. Any such organization is, by definition, the government in the given geographical region. It makes no difference in this definition what kind of organization it is, whether it is evil or benevolent, whether it is a band of gangsters or a monarchy or a “representative democracy” or a theocracy. Such an organization is, by definition, sovereign in the given geographical region.

There are today 195 nations, only twelve of which have populations less than 80,000 people. In the remaining 183 nations, therefore, a single organization—the government—consisting of at most a few hundred individuals, holds sovereign law-making power over more than 80,000 people, and as we know, typically over millions, often many millions, of people. When huge numbers of people are obliged and forced to obey laws written by a small number of OTHER people, often sitting in a capital city hundreds or even thousands of miles away from most people in the nation, that is an open door for oppressive haves to control and oppress the have-nots. And in virtually every nation today that is exactly the situation: a few haves control and oppress the many have-nots. Egalitarianism is all about making sure the haves cannot do this. This is why, as we shall see, nations and egalitarianism do not mix.

Why a Nation With a Population Greater than 80,000 Cannot be an Egalitarian Society

In an egalitarian society the sovereign law-making organization—the government—is the Local Assembly of Egalitarians. All of the adult egalitarians (meaning people who support the egalitarian values of no-rich-and-no-poor equality and mutual aid and fairness, whether they’ve ever heard the word “egalitarian” or not, i.e., most people) who live or work in the local community over which the Assembly has sovereign power, and only they, have the right to participate as equals—face to face—in the Assembly meetings to democratically write the laws that everybody in the local community must obey. No higher governmental body can write laws that people in the local community must obey. This means that adult egalitarians are never obliged or forced to obey a law that they did not have the opportunity to join with other egalitarians as equals in democratically writing.

Order on a larger scale than local communities is achieved by voluntary federation of Local Assemblies of Egalitarians, as discussed here.

What this means is that the local community must consist of a small enough number of people so that it is possible for all of the egalitarians who live or work in it who wish to participate in its Assembly meetings to realistically do so (in a large convention hall, for example.) In other words, a local community cannot realistically be one with a population greater than 80,000. (A population of around 30,000 to 40,000 would likely be appropriate most often.)

Thus, if a nation—meaning a geographical region with a single sovereign government—has a population greater than 80,000 then it cannot realistically be an egalitarian society. It is necessarily one in which, contrary to egalitarianism, adult egalitarians are obliged or forced to obey laws that they could not participate as equals with other egalitarians in writing. This is why nations (with populations greater than 80,000) and egalitarianism do not mix.

In an Egalitarian World What Would Maps Look Like?

In an egalitarian world maps would probably indicate regions in which most of the Local Assemblies of Egalitarians had entered into a mutual agreement, by means of voluntary federation, for certain purposes, such as forming a sharing economy of one kind or another, as discussed here. There are all sorts of mutual agreements for various purposes (cultural, sports, economic, educational, health, tourism, entertainment, etc., etc.) that a map might focus on. And yes, one important kind of mutual agreement is to form a militia, if and when necessary, to disarm violent oppressive anti-egalitarians: not “national defense” but egalitarian defense, a.k.a. working class solidarity!

The map focused on one kind of mutual agreement would likely look different from one focused on a different kind. The geographical regions would vary depending upon the particular purpose of the mutual agreement in consideration. The regions might not even each be a single contiguous one; geographically unconnected regions in a mutual agreement with each other for some purpose might just be denoted by having the same color on the map. Map makers would have more work to do! Sorry.

The Discourse about How the Ukraine-Russia War Will End is Profoundly Anti-Egalitarian

Every nation today is ruled by its haves who dominate and oppress its have-nots. The haves always want to have sovereign power over LOTS of people, and wage wars to get this power. This includes the Russian haves (led by Putin) and the Ukrainian haves (led by whomever…it’s not clear as I write now), not to mention that the United States’s haves want power over lesser-nation haves too.

The discourse now beginning over how to end the Ukraine-Russia war is one that assumes the existence of nations, not egalitarianism; it’s about where exactly the borders of the relevant nations should be drawn. If we get sucked into joining this discourse on its own unstated but very firm anti-egalitarian assumption that there will always be nations, then we end up on the anti-egalitarian side of the class war. Let’s not do that!