One to read
The nation state, democracy, freedom and human rights
In The Need for Nations, published by the independent think-tank Civitas, Roger Scruton argues that the nation state is the best guarantee we have of peace, prosperity and respect for human rights. Recent attempts to transcend the nation state by creating some kind of transnational political order have ended up either as totalitarian dictatorships like the former Soviet Union, or as unaccountable bureaucracies, like the European Union. In spite of this, the idea of the nation is under attack ”either despised as an atavistic form of social unity, or even condemned as a cause of war and conflict, to be broken down and replaced by more enlightened and more universal forms of jurisdiction".
Like all Scruton's books, The Need for Nations is beautifully written and, in places, amusing. He coins the term 'oikophobe' to describe intellectuals who hate nations or regard them as outdated. These 'oiks', whose 'hatred of home' leads them to demand international or Europe-wide rule, have failed to see the dangers in eliminating nations based on constitutional liberalism.