Page - 135 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

the national question 135 momentsocialrelationsbasedonopposedeconomicintereststookshape.The genesisofmodernnationformingcoincideswithclassdifferentiationandthe emergence of private ownership of themeans of production. The rise of the rulingclassesmarksthebeginningof thesecondstageinanation’shistory–a stagethatcontinuestothepresentday. Comparedtotheearlier formofthenation, thenewfeudalnationwasfun- damentallydifferentinasmuchasithadaclassstructure.Thefeudalnationwas acommunityof the rulingclasses, theknighthoodandaristocracy.The integ- rationprocess in the feudaleramerelyunified landowners intoacommunity ofculture: ‘Theunifyingmomentthatlinkedthenationtogether,however,was no longer thatof a commonculturehandeddown fromacommonancestral people,butthatofanewcommunityofculture’.33Fromthis,Bauerconcluded that theGermannation in theageof feudalismwasnotacontinuationof the Germanicclannation.Allhighintellectualculture–aproductofknighthood– wasbasedon theFrenchmodel.Moreover, Bauer stressed that thepreserva- tionof thenationinthis formwasonlypossibleduetotheexploitationof the peasantry. In themiddleages, thepeasantswere the largestgroupamongthe ‘tenantsofthenation’(HintersassenderNation)–i.e.popularmassesexcluded fromcreating and receiving cultural assets and condemned to form isolated localcommunities. The sharpdivide that had separated thepropertied classes from thepop- ularmasses lessenedwith the inceptionof thecapitalistmodeofproduction and emergence of amodern political system, the bourgeois nation state. As Bauer observed, commodity economy and the political changes initiated by thebourgeoisrevolutionsplayedanenormousfunctioninthetransitionfrom feudalismtocapitalism.Intheserevolutions,thenationalideawasanelement of integration for thenation.Here, Bauer agreedwithKautsky: the capitalist mode of production and exchange and the changes in the economic appar- atus of societywere the factors of integration that assembled the nation as a fully conscious, united entity. The confluence of the nation occurred not least onaccountof the socio-political changesheraldedby thedevelopment of modern capitalism, but it was also due to the establishment of an edu- cation system, standardisation of the language, and political gains such as universal suffrage, parliamentary democracy, and freedom of assembly and association.Anotheruncontestedgainofcapitalismwas its tendency toover- whelmimpedimentstosupranationalintegration.However, intheeraofmod- erncapitalism, themasses are, according toBauer, part of thenationonly to 33 Bauer1996,p.48.