Sunday, July 09, 2006

Secession and Protectionism

Recently, I've been stuck in a burst of hard work, so I haven't had the time to update this blog, to write new articles, to visit other blogs and forums, etcetera. Besides, this afternoon I have to prepare the dinner for my friends, see the Final match of the World Cup, and do some training, in the last chapter of my futile attempt to lose weight and fall below the psychological threshold of 80kg. I mean: I will not be a frequent blogger at least up to September.

I like the idea of secession: if I create a "society" with my wife, it's because I want to live with her (and viceversa, I hope); if I create a "society" with ten soccer players, it's because I want to play with them; etcetera. There are several reasons why people cooperate: both in the "small society" and in the "Great Society" ("catallaxy", i.e., "the social system of division of labour", i.e., "the market", latu sensu), society is kept together by the recognition of mutual benefits derived from cooperation.

This fact has an evolutionary meaning: no social instincts would have developed if social cooperation hadn't been beneficial to the welfare of individuals. In the Great Society, the main source of social cooperation is the greater productivity of the division of labour, the so-called "Law of Ricardo".

Every "social" relation which is not based on the recognition of reciprocal advantages, but on violence and submission, deserves to be called "slavery". Politics is a form of slavery. This sentence may appear ironical if applied to the American War of Secession. But I don't plan to talk about it.

What I want to state is that the inhabitants of a region, possibly even a single individual, have the right to secede from their political body as they see fit. Their previous co-servants have no right to keep them tied to their state.

This principle, if applied properly, would result in a society composed only of social ties whose existence exclusively rely on the value attached to them by the individuals involved. It would be a free society, not a political one.

Where's the problem? Suppose that the North of Italy secedes from the rest of Italy. Some northerners will be severed by this secession (for example, the "capitalists" who make "profits" out of development "aid" to the South). On the other hand, most northerners would gain: they wouldn't need to pay to fund the policies which create unemployment and underdevelopment in the South, and they wouldn't need to pay to fill the bellies of national politicians and their acolytes.

Anyway, suppose that only a small part of the North wanted to secede: only the county of Bolzano. That region is small enough to make our following reason meaningful.

Tomorrow, let say, Bolzano secedes from the rest of Italy and creates its own political society: "Repubblica dei Medaglioni di Cervo ai Mirtilli Rossi" (The Republic of "Medallions of Red Deer with Blackberries"). Notwithstanding the problem of being invaded and ravished by the Italian Army, under the threatening charge of "violating the Constitution" (which expressly states that the Italian State is not kept together by any "sense of belonging", but only by force, see Article V: "The Republic, One and Indivisible...").

Notwithstanding this problem, there is a more pacific way to "debellare superbos" ("crush the defiant", which is part of an Imperial Roman motto... the other part is "parcere subiectis", which means "spare the submissive"). Neglecting Anchises’ geo-political Realism, the tactic is not difficult: Protectionism.

The striving for wealth impels humans, as far as they crave for a better standard of living, to create an entangled and complex web of commercial relations, which is structurally "global", in its very nature, because of the operation of the Law of Ricardo.

Unfortunately, it is evident that a huge country can live without trading with a small country, and the standard of living of its inhabitants will be negligibly affected. The contrary is true from the other side: the small country needs to trade with the other one, as far as its inhabitants are not prepared to face a great reduction in their standard of living.

This creates the basis for a "commercial Imperialism", through Protectionism: large nations can use the wealth of their national commerce to lure the political class of smaller nations in the system of power.

From the secessionist point of view, this means that what the seceded Republic gains by severing the fiscal ties with its original political body, will be lost when the motherland will use regulations, quotas and tariffs in order to starve the "superbos" and force them to comply to the will of their old rulers.

There cannot be any secession strategy without global free trade. Their cannot be any peaceful international trade without eliminating the interference of politics on global movements of goods and services. There is no good thing in the universe that the state is incapable to turn into evil.

P.S. The imperialistic nature of protectionism is also relevant in understanding the expansion of that bureaucratic monster which is called "European Union". There is only one reasonable reason why peoples who have been subject for decades to the terrible power of Moscow have accepted immediately to become sujects of the (less terrible, more ridiculous) power of Brussels. This reason is that the countries which compose the EU are rich, and, as far as a country is member of the EU, there is some resemblance of free trade with the other members; while if a country is not member, quotas, tariffs, agricultural subsidies and regulations will hamper the division of labour. If I am right, the elimination of protectionist measures in the EU will rapidly cause the failure of the entire project: no country would have benefits in becoming a member of the monster, no member would gain in complying with the will of the eurocrats. For me, this is a very good additional reason to be a radical free trader.

14 Comments:

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