hh on Nostr: As a Catalan secessionist and an anarchist libertarian myself, this is a topic I have ...
As a Catalan secessionist and an anarchist libertarian myself, this is a topic I have spent and keep spending an inordinate amount of time reading and thinking about, probably more than the author of that book.
If by secession we're talking about the establishment of new multiple states in lieu of existing larger ones, then there's a double dynamic happening here.
First, it's extremely difficult if not outright impossible to formulate a secession project without a national emancipation project. And in many cases like Catalonia, Scotland, Flanders and so many others in Western Europe alone, that clearly hasn't been enough (obviously the role of the incumbent state in making it impossible cannot be understated).
From the libertarian point of view, though, the nation does not necessarily constitute an ideal framework, because conceptually the nation is not an entirely voluntary case of association of individuals.
It's true that in the case of a subjugated nation one of the questions is precisely that there is an option: you are born a Catalan, but you may choose not to be one, and be Spanish instead. You are Flemish, but you'd rather take up a Belgian identity. Scottish people can claim to "be" British. The state creates a national identity, and that's exactly why national emancipation is so strongly correlated with secession and state creation.
Likewise, there usually exists a broad, informal consensus among the members of the community about what "conditions" a foreigner would require to "become" one. Over here it's basically to adopt the Catalan language as your own, and that's basically it (and even that simple requirement has become extremely weak these past decades, which IMHO has had a direct impact on the failure of the Catalan movement. But I digress). Other societies will have other requirements, and consequently some make it more difficult than others (like religion, heritage, or even race).
But even something basic like language adoption doesn't fail to be a demand on the individual, even if informal, to make an effort that they may simply not want to do. Most people want things for free though, and will insist they're entitled to "membership" for a variety of reasons that usually amount to "just because". For any other type of "membership" any libertarian would defend that the "members" set requirements to join. But given the importance humans ascribe to nationality, they usually misconstrue these as unfair or "discriminatory", even in cases like Catalonia where factually speaking being considered a "Catalan" (as in a member of the ethereal "Catalan nation") doesn't really mean anything in practical terms, precisely because it is an entirely voluntary affair and there is no State to back that up.
The question is that in any case breaking up an existing nation state takes a huge amount of collective will power and mobilization. That process is inevitably illiberal even if the process is 100% peaceful. Take to the extreme, as in a violent struggle, a war, it's clear to see why and how. The collective goal becomes absolute and comes before the individual, even if it's only temporarily, until the goal is achieved.
In a peaceful struggle you may not be forcefully conscripted and sent to the front, but freedom of expression may not be granted. When you're trying to mobilize millions of people for one single common goal, with a whole modern nation state against, nuance opinions become obstacles that add to the difficulty of the task and must be discouraged (or squashed). Again, we've seen this even in relatively sucessful cases of emancipation like Ireland.
A new state will be territorially and demografically smaller, and most likely more homogeneous. That in itself makes a good case from the libertarian point of view and justifies being pro-secession by default. But it's always a probabilistic game. Again, in my own case, I know for a fact that right now, an independent Catalan state would be noticeably worse for individual freedom than the current Spanish status quo at many levels (not all). Left to operate freely, our political class and our citizens would stop short of instituting a soviet republic. I am of the opinion that their irresponsible outlook of both our politicians and citizens is the direct result precisely of being non-sovereign.
That said, shifting the politics of a smaller state should be easier and the voice of the individuals should be heard much more directly, which are more positives for secession by default. But it's a probabilistic gamble. Nothing guarantees that with newly acquired freedom, Catalans would acquire responsibility too, after 3 centuries of being kept as irresponsible subjects.
Finally, the libertarian's struggle doesn't stop there. Let's say we finally become independent, and things are at least not worse than under the previous status quo. Why shouldn't we keep decentralizing all the way down?
I would personally like to live in a land where the State had so little power that we wouldn't even care if it's a formal democracy, a monarchy, a dictatorship or whatever. Likewise, it shouldn't really matter if we're a unitary state, a federation of states, a confederation of cantons, or just a bunch of towns and neighborhoods with a common external border, because 99% of my life decisions should be exclusively in my hands, not the government's.
But good luck with that after all that long time building the case for a nation worthy of its own state and struggle to get everybody behind the idea of a common destiny. Now you want to break it up and take away the power from the Fathers of the Nation? You're dreaming (or most likely, you're a traitor!).
And then of course there's the issue of what to do with those who previously were with the status quo, and now find themselves at odds with the new one. Those who chose to be Spanish because that was the default and now are forced to choose again and bear with the consequences and the discomfort of not being in the dominant majority. Do they have the same right to territorially secede? Again, good luck with that, Respublika Srspka.
Libertarians in places like the multiple secession-worthy European nations find ourselves in a conundrum, and we're basically asked to voluntarily take a bitter medicine hoping that it will fix our problem -- maybe. For me the gamble of independence is indisputably worth it. But that's because I am an ethnic Catalan, so I am aware of and subjected to several "extra layers of oppression" from the state, merely for national reasons that I can't do anything about (except, I could choose to stop being a Catalan, right? That's the game they play...).
For others, it's just not worth going "all the way" because they do not feel the extra burden, or it doesn't bother them to be discriminated against for those reasons (many even rationalize away the discrimination). Yet others who choose not to be Catalan and choose to be Spanish instead will reject everything I am saying and insist that there are only negatives to secession and it simply is a non-sequitur for "any true libertarian", and that any and all collective categories like nationality are to be discarded...
All this is extremely difficult to understand by people living in places free of "national conflict" like the US or that belong to the dominant national majority in a state, especially libertarians of the "economy-first" type. As I said at the beginning, after more than four centuries of nation-state, secession, state building and nationhood are inextricably joined.
If by secession we're talking about the establishment of new multiple states in lieu of existing larger ones, then there's a double dynamic happening here.
First, it's extremely difficult if not outright impossible to formulate a secession project without a national emancipation project. And in many cases like Catalonia, Scotland, Flanders and so many others in Western Europe alone, that clearly hasn't been enough (obviously the role of the incumbent state in making it impossible cannot be understated).
From the libertarian point of view, though, the nation does not necessarily constitute an ideal framework, because conceptually the nation is not an entirely voluntary case of association of individuals.
It's true that in the case of a subjugated nation one of the questions is precisely that there is an option: you are born a Catalan, but you may choose not to be one, and be Spanish instead. You are Flemish, but you'd rather take up a Belgian identity. Scottish people can claim to "be" British. The state creates a national identity, and that's exactly why national emancipation is so strongly correlated with secession and state creation.
Likewise, there usually exists a broad, informal consensus among the members of the community about what "conditions" a foreigner would require to "become" one. Over here it's basically to adopt the Catalan language as your own, and that's basically it (and even that simple requirement has become extremely weak these past decades, which IMHO has had a direct impact on the failure of the Catalan movement. But I digress). Other societies will have other requirements, and consequently some make it more difficult than others (like religion, heritage, or even race).
But even something basic like language adoption doesn't fail to be a demand on the individual, even if informal, to make an effort that they may simply not want to do. Most people want things for free though, and will insist they're entitled to "membership" for a variety of reasons that usually amount to "just because". For any other type of "membership" any libertarian would defend that the "members" set requirements to join. But given the importance humans ascribe to nationality, they usually misconstrue these as unfair or "discriminatory", even in cases like Catalonia where factually speaking being considered a "Catalan" (as in a member of the ethereal "Catalan nation") doesn't really mean anything in practical terms, precisely because it is an entirely voluntary affair and there is no State to back that up.
The question is that in any case breaking up an existing nation state takes a huge amount of collective will power and mobilization. That process is inevitably illiberal even if the process is 100% peaceful. Take to the extreme, as in a violent struggle, a war, it's clear to see why and how. The collective goal becomes absolute and comes before the individual, even if it's only temporarily, until the goal is achieved.
In a peaceful struggle you may not be forcefully conscripted and sent to the front, but freedom of expression may not be granted. When you're trying to mobilize millions of people for one single common goal, with a whole modern nation state against, nuance opinions become obstacles that add to the difficulty of the task and must be discouraged (or squashed). Again, we've seen this even in relatively sucessful cases of emancipation like Ireland.
A new state will be territorially and demografically smaller, and most likely more homogeneous. That in itself makes a good case from the libertarian point of view and justifies being pro-secession by default. But it's always a probabilistic game. Again, in my own case, I know for a fact that right now, an independent Catalan state would be noticeably worse for individual freedom than the current Spanish status quo at many levels (not all). Left to operate freely, our political class and our citizens would stop short of instituting a soviet republic. I am of the opinion that their irresponsible outlook of both our politicians and citizens is the direct result precisely of being non-sovereign.
That said, shifting the politics of a smaller state should be easier and the voice of the individuals should be heard much more directly, which are more positives for secession by default. But it's a probabilistic gamble. Nothing guarantees that with newly acquired freedom, Catalans would acquire responsibility too, after 3 centuries of being kept as irresponsible subjects.
Finally, the libertarian's struggle doesn't stop there. Let's say we finally become independent, and things are at least not worse than under the previous status quo. Why shouldn't we keep decentralizing all the way down?
I would personally like to live in a land where the State had so little power that we wouldn't even care if it's a formal democracy, a monarchy, a dictatorship or whatever. Likewise, it shouldn't really matter if we're a unitary state, a federation of states, a confederation of cantons, or just a bunch of towns and neighborhoods with a common external border, because 99% of my life decisions should be exclusively in my hands, not the government's.
But good luck with that after all that long time building the case for a nation worthy of its own state and struggle to get everybody behind the idea of a common destiny. Now you want to break it up and take away the power from the Fathers of the Nation? You're dreaming (or most likely, you're a traitor!).
And then of course there's the issue of what to do with those who previously were with the status quo, and now find themselves at odds with the new one. Those who chose to be Spanish because that was the default and now are forced to choose again and bear with the consequences and the discomfort of not being in the dominant majority. Do they have the same right to territorially secede? Again, good luck with that, Respublika Srspka.
Libertarians in places like the multiple secession-worthy European nations find ourselves in a conundrum, and we're basically asked to voluntarily take a bitter medicine hoping that it will fix our problem -- maybe. For me the gamble of independence is indisputably worth it. But that's because I am an ethnic Catalan, so I am aware of and subjected to several "extra layers of oppression" from the state, merely for national reasons that I can't do anything about (except, I could choose to stop being a Catalan, right? That's the game they play...).
For others, it's just not worth going "all the way" because they do not feel the extra burden, or it doesn't bother them to be discriminated against for those reasons (many even rationalize away the discrimination). Yet others who choose not to be Catalan and choose to be Spanish instead will reject everything I am saying and insist that there are only negatives to secession and it simply is a non-sequitur for "any true libertarian", and that any and all collective categories like nationality are to be discarded...
All this is extremely difficult to understand by people living in places free of "national conflict" like the US or that belong to the dominant national majority in a state, especially libertarians of the "economy-first" type. As I said at the beginning, after more than four centuries of nation-state, secession, state building and nationhood are inextricably joined.
quoting nevent1q…zz40Ryan McMaken, Executive Editor and Economist at the Mises Institute, explains the concept of ‘Radical Decentralization’ and why secession is more important now than ever.