X @Balaji

I understand this argument, but the counterargument is simply scale.Empirically, multi-ethnic ideological empires like Rome, the British Empire, Napoleon’s France, the Soviet Union, and the US defeated smaller monoethnic nation states.They defeated them militarily, culturally, economically, and ideologically. And then integrated them. Thereby setting the laws, including the laws of the marketplace.Of course, in each case, rapid imperial expansion may well have laid the seeds of future collapse. But the smal ...