Ethno-nationalism now functions as symbolic insurance substituting for redistributive state provision
Evidence
We can see in these developments a new type of actuarial chauvinism—which is distinct from other types of social insurance—whose allocations of responsibility no longer involve substantive redistribution. As the state retreats from both its insurance and its redistributive roles, new collective liabilities fill the void it leaves behind. What unites these communities is their distinctive use of ethno- nationalism as insurance against their widely varied experiences of uncertainty. But the “compensations” that are claimed and received through this symbolic insurance differ because people’s access to the “underwritten assets” at stake (such as imagined sovereignty and collective autonomy) remains vastly unequal. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 457
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces ‘actuarial chauvinism’ as a distinct category of social insurance.
- DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely paradigm-level claim: uncertainty insurance has migrated from the redistributive state to exclusionary ethno-national solidarity, with stratified payoffs.
- XREF: connects to: Ethno-nationalism serves as actuarial insurance whose payouts are distributed unequally — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 295; Nationalism answers an existential belonging deficit that capitalism creates — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2047; Nationalism operates as a rationality entwined within financial fields — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 280
Broader Connections
- Ethno-nationalism serves as actuarial insurance whose payouts are distributed unequally
#expands(0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 295 - Nationalism operates as a rationality entwined within financial fields
#expands(0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 280 - Nationalism answers an existential belonging deficit that capitalism creates
#expands(0.72) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2047