The Modern State
The modern state is recent. State
means political unit that has ultimate sovereignty that is, a political unit
that has ultimate responsibility for the conduct of its own affairs. The modern
state developed for several reasons. One of the biggest reasons why the modern
state developed was due to the industrial revolution. This was so because
people in political power wanted to tax the industry. Another reason was the
government created states to have more control and be more efficient. It is
attributed to Napoleon the creation of the modern state. Than another reason
for the development of the state was the great amounts of land the kings and
queens during this time, were obtaining. This actions lead to political
divisions for fewer taxes to be paid as an example.
When we thing about a sate what comes
to our minds, well some of this answers are that as everyone living in a given
territory belong to a state, government apparatus that makes and enforces rules
and laws to control certain ways for people to leave. Those are examples of a
state.
The invention of the modern state is
fairly recent. Seven hundred years ago people did not have the conscious of
feeling that they belong to a state. Most people lived on subsistence farms,
intimately concerned with their villages. In the 14th and 15th
centuries after the European kings began to claim greater powers and to tighten
their control over large territories the shifting political divisions began to
coalesce into states. But it was until the 19th century that the
modern states of Europe were formally known.
Even after people in Europe were
begging to know about the state they really did not feel the necessity of
belonging to a country. The people with the lowest education during the 17th-18th
century did not take relevance about the political situation, but the people
with money and elite social classes did so, since they saw this as a beneficial
aspect for their social and economic interest.
As some states developed the idea of a
nation did at the same time. A nation is a group of people that share same
believes and cultural aspects. An example can be: the ethnic groups of a
country or in some cases the same religious believes. The idea of a nation now
in our modern era has formed strong alliances that have a great economic power.
Above the state, world leaders are
groping for structures that would replace many functions of the state. This has
developed especially in economic interest. In Europe, the European Union
established after WWII, now in the 20th century it is conformed from
15 countries of Europe. Many more countries are in a list of “standby” due to
their economic failure or social development. Than we have the NAFTA that is
the Mexico, USA, and Canada union the lets a free trade between those three
countries. Than other unions are like the World Bank or the IMF that are
economic institutions that help countries with economic matter for development.
As we can see from our previous examples,
these states have formed nations that have a great economic influence. The idea
of a state is due to the Napoleonic era. It was because of him and the
industrial revolution that we have states and nations.
Although the state has developed and
we can observe many of the positive aspects that it has had we find at the same
time social and environmental dilemmas. Social movements have brought several
states down and even nations. The environmental problems can be the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster or the Japanese nuclear disaster too. These environmental
problems affect states because in several cases affect other states and cause
international trouble.
The state is limited, even though the
rapid growth of people’s expansion of purchasing power leads to a surge of
imports from other countries cause trouble on taxes many times. The industry is
the creator of the state, countries and nations. In a way it can be said that
they control basically the world. This is the idea of “Globalization”. This
idea involves currency, international business, development, and social
movements. The development of the modern state is a fairly new, idea of feeling
identified or belonging with a group of people is fairly new. The state if good
and the political approach for world peace and development of an equal and fair
society that continue to develop are examples of the future we are headed
towards to.
The United Nations