Internationalism
Internationalism is a political platform which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all. Internationalists claim that nations should cooperate because their long-term mutual interests are of greater value than their individual short term needs. Thus paradoxically, it is at once dependent on and transcending nationalism.
The nature of globalization, from technological advances (such as the Informational Age), multinational mediators (such as the UN), regional trade blocs (such as the EU), and military alliances (such as NATO) suggest that this is well underway.
Internationalism is by nature opposed to ultranationalism, jingoism, realism and national chauvinism. Internationalism teaches that the people of all nations have more in common than they do differences, and thus that nations should treat each other as equals. The strong version of internationalism is cosmopolitanism; this latter term is sometiemes used pejoratively. Cosmopolitanism taken to an even stronger if not absolute point is sometimes referred to as universalism; claims for world government usually tend to fall here.
Most communist parties (such that of People's Republic of China) also claim to adhere to internationalism, although not to cosmopolitanism. Some Stalinist countries[Who?] declare their internationalism too, although without a powerful international sponsor (like the Soviet Union during the Cold War) it makes little sense.
[edit] Notable internationalists
- Albert Einstein, (a socialist) who believed in a world government, and classified the follies of nationalism as "an infantile sickness"[1]
- Isaac Asimov, also a believer in world government
- Carl Sagan, who incorporated the theme of international cooperation in his novel, Cosmos, as well as other of his works and talks
[edit] References
- ↑ Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, 1934