On October 27, the Parliament of Catalonia declared independence from Spain. There are lots of libertarian lessons therein.
First: There is no political disease political violence cannot make worse. Catalan nationalism, a three century-long fact of Catalan culture, right or wrong, has boiled over. Madrid’s response has been intransigence. Where there was ambiguity of what Catalan nationalism is, and was, much less what they really want, now Catalans know there is a fight because Madrid is making it one. Voting for a vote for independence sometime in the future in a jack-leg referendum is ephemeral, batons upside the heads of Catalan ladies by the Guardia Civil is very real. Political violence is a catalyst for political reality, the same way witchcraft is ephemeral, but killing a cat makes it real.
Madrid’s response to the independence movement overlays a historical pattern of Catalan cultural suppression, and will likely erase whatever progress Madrid has made in atoning for it. After all, the Catalan language was illegal in the living memory of many.
Jailing Catalan’s leaders will not defuse this bomb. It will only add in another negotiating point, among the many others on the table, and that is assuming the best outcome of a sit-down negotiation rather than a combat one. It will require Catalan replacement leaders to drive a hard bargain for the freedom of their political martyrs. Symbolic negotiation points should not preside over real ones.
Second: political violence often happens because it has been happening, with the abstract causes fading into the reality of the turn of events (think of the joke that became “America fighting for freedom and Democracy” in Iraq). Political conflict needs to be avoided as far as possible because the best way to stop it happening is to keep it from happening. Can anyone really argue that Iraq would be not be better off if the ethnic feuds could be subsumed to forming a true Nation? Whatever deal of power-sharing attempted in the Iraqi Constitutional deliberations, the outcome turned out to be less stable, more violent and more expensive.
That Catalan has to resort to this, to negotiate political conflicts, is really an indictment of the lack of adaptability in the binary political approach of Western democracies. Libertarians argue for an evolution beyond this. This is the same winner-take-all system that in the USA brought about a presidential contest between two candidates of such unpopularity that it could never have survived any parliamentary system on the earth, and now Drumpf rules our vast state.
But, politicians embrace illogic as much as anything else their constituencies demand. This point of should be easily understood in the Trump era. It is likely Catalan would spend all the money disproportionately taken from them in taxes on the trappings of their own State. Our Founding Fathers warned us against these passions of the mob, creating the deliberative Senate, as the saucer to cool the hot passions of the House. Libertarians would handcuff popular political power as much as centralized power. Neither has a historical monopoly on wisdom, and both have a long historical history of being very wrong.
An outcome of independence would likely see the EU apply harsh terms on the new nation (they would say rump), the same way they now seem to be oriented towards doing towards the UK. That the EU will impose penalties long after the incentives and grievances have played out is as good a metaphor for the folly of harming people for their own good as any (again, the EU is ephemeral, sanctions upside the head is very real). The EU has never been popular anywhere it’s been tested (and always, the argument for keeping it is that it is too far advanced to retreat from). Yet it is to this remote and unaccountable entity the Catalans must weigh their future? Catalans can’t object when the EU makes them pay Greece’s bills as well as those of most of their countrymen? And they have no real possibility of remedy? And that on top of the sovereignty they have already so painfully surrendered (and want back)?
If the argument is that a divided Spain is a precedent to other nations in an unfavorable relationship with the EU, with coercion (in the form of EU penalties) needed to get them to remain, is this not more of an argument for reforming the EU than one for insisting minority cultures forgo their history? Especially, as we have seen, since minority cultures are often made stronger by the smiting. Remember, the EU was created to unite Europe. Again, conflict makes its own reality, and makes opaque the original goal.
Of course, the flip side of the ethics coin of the conflict is: who are these separatists to start a fight on behalf of all other Catalans? What about the millions of Catalans who earn their living through trade within Spain and the EU? This quandary illustrates the same limitations of the binary, winner-take-all, zero-sum, developed world’s political system. Better to leave State control loose and taxes flat. It should not be for one political entity to “weigh” the benefits and concerns of another (because there is always a thumb on the scale, or as important, the perception of one).
Third: People object to paying other people’s taxes.
The complexities of a modern people’s needs are very hard to reduce to binary political solutions like the novel that is a person cannot be reduced to a chalkboard slogan. In Catalonia’s case, in trying to stretch a political tent over their culture, Spain is now having to drive people under it with clubs. The extremity of Spain should not make us miss the fact that across the politically developed world, including our own Republic, the old tents are fraying for the stretching. Is driving Southern Baptists under the tent that includes a panoply of gay rights going to take the same force? Drumpf has a “pen and a phone” too, the one the previous owners of the very same winner-take-all system used to do things to their their political enemies, and who now feel the same system is delegitimized; and now it is axiomatic that we are extremely divided, possibly fatally so. We fought the Civil War over the great and clear issue of slavery. But now? Our own political culture, the most developed in the world, the most diverse in its tent, and the most adaptive in history, is knives out over thin-soup issues like what sort of bathrooms the state will mandate. And we don’t have to contest with really big issues like the legacy of Franco’s fascism, which was recent enough that Saturday Night Live had a running gag about it. Better to let federalism allow what the culture can stand without conflict. Better to loosen the grip of the centralized state, better to let progress and evolution iron out retrograde cultural elements, or allow them to dwindle out of the heat of conflict.
Political power is very hard to calibrate without conflict. It is suitable for something simple like warring on an enemy (and the wrong track has been taken when the enemy is us), but it cannot resolve cultural conflicts, only exacerbate them: either there is an elite minority stepping on a majority (EU), or far more common, a majority lording it over a minority (Catalan). There is simply no way to calibrate this balance externally, and political whimsies can change a stable alchemy overnight. America’s track record (historically, not recently) of the give-and-take over time of evolution, combined with robust protections of minority rights, but more importantly, freedom, has been the secret to success for our polyglot, ever-evolving culture. We were blessed with this because political power is restricted as much as popular power.
Madrid should kennel her political dogs. They should renegotiate what they can. For what they can’t, there should be provision for a true referendum, one that will not be a deep tendon reflex to existing political violence, if possible, given the swirl of events. Britain showed how, both with the Scottish independence vote, and their Brexit.
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Eugene, you seem to say, although buffered with some cotton, that Catalonia’s drive for independence has been squashed by the Spanish government. Catalonia has never been an independent country. It was part of the kingdom of Aragon, which joined the kingdom of Castilla to form today’s Spain. The catalan language has never been banned, not even during General Franco’s dictatorship. There has not been a 300-year drive for Independence, as you say. Rather, Catalonia and its leaders have traditionally wanted to lead Spain as its most prosperous region (with a drop in 1934, during the cataclismic years of the Republic), until the early 1980s, when the regional leaders plotted to transform the region into a country. This plot has been implemented through the administration and the school system, which have produced two generations of independentists. The Spanish judiciary, not the Spanish government, has led the process to indict the Catalan government, following the law. The national police and the Guardia Civil were following court orders to impede the referendum, and they intervened after the regional police declined to do their job, siding up with the rebels. There is a procedure to declare the independence of a region in the Spanish constitution. The only problem for independentists? It requires that the country approves it, through elections and then a referendum, as it logically should be. All Spaniards should have a right to decide on the secession of a part of their country. So please check your facts before making blank easy statements on demagogical topics.
I thought it was clear in the article that political irrationality is a fact that politicians respond to. I never said Catalans claims are “justifiable” whatever that means. For what it’s worth, I don’t support their independence. I do support a negotiation that prevents violence. And the Spanish Guardia used a great deal of violence, and now the Catalan gripes against Spanish violence are proven. I personally saw footage of a Guardsman smashing a little old lady in the face with his baton (among many other acts of violence that would be a crime anywhere else). If that guardsman is not criminally punished, the edifice of Spanish law cannot be held up as an example. The law of a state must reflect the values of the people, and if they don’t, conflict can ensue, and political conflict is best avoided. I am calling for it to be avoided through negotiation. Less smashing old ladies.
See this link for issues regarding the Catalan language: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policies_of_Francoist_Spain
The Spanish judiciary, to hear Catalans tell it, is packed with old Franco fascists. That, if true, would give Catalans the same reason to challenge them as if Confederate judges sat on courts in the USA. Do people have no redress when they feel unfairly treated by the courts? And if you tell them there is no redress, how can violence be avoided? The rule of law has its limitations: British sovereignty over its Colonies was legal, but not right.
I said nothing about Catalan Demography.
All of these arguments are distractions from the main point: across the politically developed world, large numbers of people are not having their political interests met through binary, winner-take-all Democracy. Whatever the merit of Catalan grievance, they are communicating that the current arrangements are not satisfactory. Do free people have free will to make other political arrangements? Or can Spain impose their will by force? If you say Force, realize you are saying war
From libertarian to libertarian, I am sure we agree on many things most people profoundly reject. This one is different, because I am Spanish and it seems you are not versed on what goes on here. Which is perfectly understandable. Citing Wikipedia is not the best way to argue with a local, I guess… Here is another perspective on the use of the Catalan language during Franco: http://www.diarioya.es/content/el-falso-bulo-de-la-prohibici%C3%B3n-del-catal%C3%A1n-durante-el-franquismo. The smashing of the old lady I did not see. A great deal of the images which were flown around after October 1 were fakes or from other conflicts. The ones which were real were not worse than what we see in any civilized country (the US included) when people confront security forces, which in civilized countries are there to protect the law, so to guard liberty. By the way, the Guardia Civil is one of the most respected corps in Spain.
Again, if the current arrangements are not satisfactory to a minority of the Catalan population, as you say, the Spanish Constitution includes the means to change them. The referendum in Catalonia was an ilegal act, as the judges are making clear now.
I hope you can drop by to check on Spain anytime soon. In the meantime, here goes some perspective from the largest circulation newspaper (libertarian rank: close to zero) in Spain:
https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/11/06/inenglish/1509969254_414927.html?id_externo_rsoc=FB_CC
https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/20/inenglish/1508492345_674233.html?id_externo_rsoc=FB_CC
https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/18/inenglish/1508325235_772160.html?id_externo_rsoc=FB_CC
https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/03/inenglish/1507025584_438952.html?id_externo_rsoc=FB_CC
And this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rQAo8xc6qE&sns=tw
Cheers.
Sir,
I thank you for your corrections, which I respectfully accept.
Just to clarify, and maybe part of the issue is my use of the American colloquialism “Jack Leg,” which means “crooked and illegitimate.” I totally agree with you that the referendum is crooked and illegitimate. But a people can be as irrational as a government. This is why governance should be NOT be either having all of their way on the individual.
I decry State violence in Spain as I decry it in the USA. I’ve written many times of over-Policing (far more of a problem in my country than in yours), and there is no question that some of the violence footage I saw in Spain was excessive. (Likening it to routine Police violence in the USA still makes it very bad.) Part of the reason I hate it so, is that violence almost always is counter-productive. It’s a bad tactic in dealing with political demonstrations for its effects in galvanizing and entrenching both sides. I am convinced that had Britain reacted like this to Scottish independence, their referendum would have carried. I concede your point on language, but I am convinced Spain’s (proper) reaction was not wise. Another issue for me is that I am a paramedic, and have seen people die, or become rendered addled, from being hit in the head like that. I will try to send you the video I saw. (Continued…)
(Continued…)
What is interesting, from a Libertarian point of view, and reinforces my idea that Spain should “kennel their dogs” and wait for this to blow over (which they seem to be doing), are reports http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/09/investing/spain-catalonia-banks-companies-independence/index.html of businesses voting with their feet and leaving Catalonia. What could be a greater affirmation of Libertarian Principals that there are better, more peaceful, more direct ($) ways of conducting a negotiation of man’s life requirements, than through a binary, winner take all, A and B votes to take from C force? In a way, this outcome is really good for we Libertarians in that regard: money is important, and Catalonia may yet (I think will) see that it profits them to remain in Spain. I hope they do. I sympathize with your feelings on having your country in conflict. But American conflict is brewing too. (Hell, it’s brewing everywhere: Belgium; Scotland.) There is noise of California seceding from the USA. I believe much of this noise in the developed political world is in the failure (in the limitation) of winner-take-all binary politics. I would argue against California seceding, but I would not use violence to stop it. Instead, I would advocate for a looser, more local, form of administrative politics. (I know, Catalonia has most of that already.)
Thanks again.