A quote from Noam Chomsky

“Well, the nation state is pretty much a European invention, I mean there were similar things, but the nation state in the modern form was largely created in Europe over many centuries. It’s so unnatural and artificial that it had to be imposed by extreme violence. In fact that’s the primary reason why Europe was the most savage part of the world for centuries. It was due to trying to impose a nation state system on cultures and societies that are varied and if you look at them had no relation to this artificial structure.”

In fact the derivative effects were also the main reason the concept spread elsewhere. In the course of creating modern nation states, Europe developed a culture of savagery and a technology of violence which enabled it to conquer the world, and as it conquered the world it attempted to impose nation state systems wherever it went, also artificial and violent. If you look at today’s major conflicts around the world, most of them are the residue of European efforts to impose nation state systems where it doesn’t make any sense, which is almost everywhere. The few exceptions to this are places of European colonization where they simply exterminated the indigenous population, like the United States and Australia. So there you get more homogeneous societies. On the other hand, the primary reason why the savage conflicts in Europe ended in 1945 was that it was recognized that if they continued this game any longer, they’d just wipe themselves out. So you have, since 1945, a peace internal to Europe. Germans and French don’t regard it as their highest goal in life to slaughter each other anymore.”

– Noam Chomsky

State and Corp.
Noam Chomsky interviewed by uncredited interviewer
ZNet Germany, May 18, 2005