A Short History of the Cross-Class Coalition

This chapter begins with narrating the creation of a cross-class coalition to offer all citizens a set of valuable goods and opportunities. It notes that nationalism started as a project of the elites, and in order to materialize it, they had to gather the support of the people. The chapter emphasizes that for social cooperation to prevail, participants need not attain identical goods and benefits; it is sufficient that they secure for themselves significant benefits they could not have otherwise acquired. It argues that membership in the nation became the relevant criteria for inclusion (and exclusion). Wealth, education, skills, and social status were still relevant for the distribution of power but could not be used as benchmarks for participation in the political game. The chapter also examines how the nation-state gave members of all classes a reason to participate in a collective effort to form a national political unit that would benefit (albeit in different ways and to a different extent) all its members. Ultimately, the chapter investigates why the emergence of the modern nation-state paved the way for inclusive social policies.