Do countries participate in the master slave dialectic?

Sovereign countries, in many ways, behave like the individuals that compose them. While this is true, the similarities are not endless, and one might consider the activity of countries playing out the master slave dialectic a rather tenuous connection. Tenuous as it may be, who else is better suited to explore such a connection if not the philosopher?

Certain themes run throughout all of history but the manifestation of these themes changes with the times and so it is important to identify them in each time period and not be fooled by the fresh veneer. To attest to the veracity of this claim I will posit slavery as one such theme that runs constant in history while changing its appearance. Slavery was present in most of the ancient cultures and continued to exist in various forms until the present. Though many people are not aware, slavery is still thriving today, it has changed locations and in some places has even taken the guise of lawful work, but it still exists in shockingly high numbers.

In particular I want to examine countries that subjugate others through war. Do the countries that attack and conquer other countries truly recognize their sovereignty if they wage war against them? Is this the same as a consciousness trying to gain recognition? Hegel writes that a consciousness must present itself to the other, and doing so is showing “that it is not attached to any specific existence, not to the individuality common to existence as such, that it is not attached to life.” (p.113) I argue that in claiming to be a country, a country is staking its existence on being recognized as such by other sovereign countries.

When the Romans were expanding their empire they fought and defeated many barbarian tribes. These barbarians they conquered had structure and ordered societies, and yet they were not recognized as equal with the Romans and were defeated. This to me looks to be the life and death struggle that Hegel refers to on page 114 “ They must engage in this struggle, for they must raise their certainty of being for themselves to truth, both in the case of the other and in their own case. And it is only through staking one’s life that freedom is won.” This trend can be seen in almost every war throughout history.

Countries are like individuals in that to establish their freedom and gain true recognition they must stake their lives (existence) on it. In the case of one country waging war upon another, the aggressing country does not recognize the other as its equal and the attacked nation must stake its life in fighting back or else become subservient (the slave) to the other.