Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Dec 20, 2011 14:26:20 GMT 1
Ah, but think of the upside. I, for one, am quite looking forward to the Cornish Pasta Pasty. (see? I was listening)
I'm not sure that's the defining characteristic of true socialism, you know. Communist internationalism maybe, but that's proven to be pushed by an even more murderous set of bastards than the Nazis.
Or, alternatively, natural accretions of people with a shared language, culture, etc and usually a big fuck-off mountain range or wide river between them and the next lot. The trouble with applying some half-arsed pseudo-Marxist theory to natural phenomena is that it will always give you shit answers. It's a bit like creationists claiming the fossil record is proof of creationism, as it was created by Satan to tempt us.
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Dec 20, 2011 15:54:36 GMT 1
How do you protect local interests if you scrap nations?
Who looks after the good people of Sheffield when the giant state has decided it's more economical to produce steel elsewhere?
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ab
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Post by ab on Dec 20, 2011 16:31:44 GMT 1
Well I agree with brispie - it would be absolutely lovely if we could all live in fraternal harmony around the world. Even nicer if it could just be magicked up rather than have to develop through any of the possible routes to getting there that don't involve absolutely everyone simultaneously thinking "hey wouldn't it be nice if we all just stopped thinking about ourselves, our families, our communities, towns, regions and countries and just got along". All the other routes involve being beastly in a wide number of different ways to different groups of people for the ultimate greater good.
Last time anyone tried it peaceably (Babel) they got right royally smited by God for getting a bit too uppity.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Dec 20, 2011 16:41:51 GMT 1
He wasn't too bothered until they started blatantly ignoring his planning regulations, though, was he?
I'm sure there's an EU parable in their somewhere.
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ab
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Post by ab on Dec 20, 2011 17:37:09 GMT 1
Isn't brispie in planning? So, now he wants a brotherhood of man, yet one of his semi-divine predecessors slapped a demolition order on the last time that was tried out? Bloody bureaucrats.
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Dec 20, 2011 17:58:06 GMT 1
I refer you back to my idea of a federation of regions. Local democracy is strengthened by giving power to these regions set within a framework of Europe or the world or solar system or universe or whatever.
Bernie - I think you are largely wrong about borders. It has usually more been the case that minority cultures have been subsumed into the larger whole in the name of nationalism, rather than boundaries naturally fitting them. Coming from an English speaking Welshman I would have thought better of you. OK, very occasionally a natural feature does affect this, but it's a rarity.
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ab
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Post by ab on Dec 20, 2011 18:22:21 GMT 1
What if we called these regions things like Germany, France, the UK and within them had devolved power to the Lander, Departements, Nations, Counties and Boroughs? I'm not bureaucrat but these seem to be fairly easily manageable areas where most of the people within them wouldn't find it too hard to understand who was in charge and how to get rid of them.
On the other hand, I can see the attraction of the fact-finding missions that could be undertaken in deciding whether to join up Cornwall with Sicily et al. Might be a little tasty pairing Corsica and Sardinia up or taking Malta's George Cross back as it becomes part of the confederation of small islands along with the Isle of Wight, Western Isles and Corfu.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Dec 20, 2011 19:21:59 GMT 1
Bernie - I think you are largely wrong about borders. It has usually more been the case that minority cultures have been subsumed into the larger whole in the name of nationalism, rather than boundaries naturally fitting them. Largely wrong in, say, Africa, but largely right in asia and Europe. And take the statement in its entirety - it would be hard to dispute that different nations tend to have different languages, cultures, religions etc. Africa would be about the only place where borders were defined by a ruling class, but even there mankind's innate drive to butcher his neighbour has sorted out most of the cases where the tribal territorial lines and the European colonisers' lines didn't match. Nationalism tends to be pretty grass roots (of course, it can be whipped up and exploited by a ruling class, but so can any political movement) - just look at what happened in Yugoslavia after years of living together under the brotherhood of a socialist republic. It's daft, and hopefully we can evolve our way out of it as a species, but it's pretty deep seated as well. Until we meet the killer alien invaders, of course. I'm pretty anarcho-communist-libertarian in my own outlook, and hopefully when the UK finally collapses into a nightmare wasteland of armed gangs murdering each other for the remaining turnips, I can return with a pocketful of powerful Krona and an arsenal of even more powerful weaponry to stamp my vision on the sceptered isle. A vision which wouldn't look all that different from yours, with the exception of a central "state" worth the name. More Englishman gone native, and the Welsh-speaking parts of Wales are West of the Tawe and north of the Beacons ;-)
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Michelotti
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Post by Michelotti on Dec 21, 2011 6:05:40 GMT 1
How do you protect local interests if you scrap nations? Who looks after the good people of Sheffield when the giant state has decided it's more economical to produce steel elsewhere? Were that's already happening isn't it? And while were at it, who's looking after the good people of Scunthorpe and Middlesboro now the Indians have decided its cheaper to produce steel elsewhere ?
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Dec 21, 2011 10:15:25 GMT 1
I refer you back to my idea of a federation of regions. Local democracy is strengthened by giving power to these regions set within a framework of Europe or the world or solar system or universe or whatever. Who decides the regions? Some kind of ruling class, presumably? Or will we all be consulted?
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Dec 21, 2011 11:20:10 GMT 1
The regions exist and always have done a long time before nation states.
And Bernie, you're still wrong about Europe. Culture and language has been subsumed or allowed to die out in the name of nationalism. Spain is a cultural hodge podge. France was similar 200 years or so ago, but everything has been swallowed up by the dominant Frankish culture of the north. Belgium teeters on the edge of separation. The Norweigans sporadically get dominated by Danes or Swedes. The Poles (and Germans) destroyed Prussian, Teutonic, Galician and Silesian language and culture. 30 years ago nobody would have known of the existence of Moldovan, Kosovan, Azerbaijani or Belarusian cultures.
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Dec 21, 2011 11:36:07 GMT 1
Which regions are you talking about? Saxon ones? Celtic ones? Stone age ones?
They all exist for the same reason and they all have their boundaries dictated by the same causes. Does it matter whether it's Wessex, the Duchy of Lancashire, the UK or the United States of Europe?
"The Poles (and Germans) destroyed Prussian, Teutonic, Galician and Silesian language and culture."
The Poles destroyed Prussia now? Do you have your own history book that is the opposite of everyone else's?
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Dec 21, 2011 12:16:25 GMT 1
In what sense? Surely not as collectives of people with a shared culture, language etc, because you keep telling me I'm wrong about that :-) So, in what form did they exist?
Once again, you're not making any sense. What is nationalism if it isn't culture and language?
Of things you don't really find outside of Spain. If having two slightly different languages, one with more x's in is a "cultural hodgepodge" then.. well, I despair.
200 years ago it was an Empire.
You mean the dominant French culture of France.
Belgium's already separated, thus proving my point. Very much to the dismay of any "ruling class" there...
What?! And the only reason Norway exists is due to popular nationalism, not the "ruling class". I'd love to know when the Norwegians were last dominated by the Danes, do tell.
Don't be daft. Silesian is just a dialect of Polish. That's like saying England destroyed Rutland's culture. Teutonic and Prussian are much the same thing and rather central to the popular nationalism that created Germany in the first place (and I don't think Poland did very well against either of them)
THat's because 20 years ago the Russians were in charge of most of those area and their ruling class fought extremely hard to stamp out those national identities. 30 years ago, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania didn't officially exist, it was just USSR. Until populist movements kicked the ruling class out. So they are not "lines drawn on a map by the ruling class" but lines drawn on a map by popular demand by people who feel they share an identity.
The examples you give above seem to support my argument rather than yours. Which is rather baffling.
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ab
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Post by ab on Dec 21, 2011 12:58:54 GMT 1
It may be that contiguous relatively homogenous regions are the ideal unit for government on the basis of ensuring that the ruled and ruling closely identify with one another and that the interests of the people within the region are not sacrificed for the interests of those in other regions that for whatever reason are more favoured by the ruling class.
So, I can quite understand that Cornwall might be such a region, or even the "South West England" region defined under EU law (excising Gibraltar - although I'm not sure that the locals there would be overkeen on being part of a former Spanish region) and be freed from the oppressive yoke of policies from people in London who only see Cornwall as a nice place to parade in Boden/Jack Wills on holiday.
It doesn't really follow from this that it should be under the aegis of a federal system on a pan-European basis other than where the federal government had very limited impact on the day to day lives of the people in the regions. The more powerful the federal government, the less autonomy that of the regional one. If Cornwall doesn't get much of a say in the government of the UK it is hardly likely to get more of a say in the government of a 28 State EU.
So, having a small state model of what the EU government might do could work - perhaps a limit to defence, foreign affairs, large network infrastructure and the resolution of inter-regional disputes through federal courts. The central EU government might one day be able to do more by consent of the regions once their people started to feel EU-ish rather than Cornish. But, once you have offered the oppressed people of Cornwall a taste of self-determination why would they want to give it up for rule from Brussels until then?
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Dec 21, 2011 14:34:22 GMT 1
What you say makes a certain amount of sense AB. That is what I believe, that giving the regions more power will enhance democracy. I'd keep the overarching power with little power, but this may well mean that the regions like their autonomy a bit too much. However, the benefits of remaining within that structure need to be sold and strengthened. You'd probably end up with a watered down version of the EU as is now, but with regions rather than nations.
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Dec 21, 2011 14:55:30 GMT 1
Bernie.
1. The regions are more homogenous and with a longer history than states. Their languages might have disappeared, but a lot of their customs haven't.
2. Nationalism is the culture and language of the dominant culture.
3. Two? Spain is built upon at least 3 or more cultures and if they had their way they'd break away from Spain like a shot.
4. 200 years or so ago it was a mish mash of languages and cultures. Burgundian, Breton, Provencal, Occitan. all subsumed into the dominant norther French culture.
5. Belgium has always been linguistically separated, just that now it has become politically separated. If your argument about language being a driver stood up, they would just join the Netherlands and France.
6. You must know about the Kalmar Union. Denmark, Sweden and Norway united for about 200 years. The Danes walked away in the 16th century and took Norway with them until the early 19th century when it passed to Sweden, until the early 20th century. They had a peaceful referendum, so a decision by the people under control of the ruling classes.
7. Rutland never had it's own language. Silesian is a separate Slavic language that is related to Polish. Poland became the dominant culture so Silesian is now considered to be a dialect of Polish. The same way that the Russkies use to say that Ukrainian was a dialect of Russian.
8. A bit of Prussian history for you (and Dan). The Prussians were a slavic people, probably more closely related to the Lithuanians than the Poles. The Poles called in the Teutonic Knights to convert them to Christianity. They did so, so thoroughly and ruthlessly that they managed to carve out a state that ultimately too the name of the people and culture that they had suppressed, so that Prussian came to mean something completely different. How ironic that this Prussia went on to destroy Poland as a nation in the late 18th century.
9. Those nations in the ex-USSR, almost to a tee, have the boundaries that were drawn up by the Soviet ruling classes. Lithuania once had an empire that stretched as far as the Black Sea.
You are looking at history backwards Bernie.
Poland is a great example. Historical Poland was further to the East with Lvov one if its key cities. The Poland that got created after the 1st world war (again by the ruling classes), wasn't far off historical Poland. However, after World War II they were moved further west for the sake of Stalin to German areas and now everyone assumes that this is Poland.
These boundaries were artifically created by the ruling classes and history has been made to fit the current circumstances. This happened not just throughout Europe, but the world.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Dec 21, 2011 15:26:29 GMT 1
Modern Norway didn't exist until the beginning of the last century. That it does now is due to popular will, not lines drawn on a map by a ruling class. (your rather tortuous dodge about it being a "popular decision under a ruling class" notwithstanding).
The point of Belgium, the former Soviet states et al is that on the occasions a ruling class do start drawing lines on a map, the people demarcated by those lines generally get other ideas. You keep giving examples of that, which as I say, merely strengthens my argument. Conquest does alter things, of course, but as we've established no ruling class anywhere has the power to conquer another country without popular support.
Poland is indeed interesting - as you say, the lines were redrawn all over Europe after WW1, and the ethnic and nationalist strife caused by that led to WWII, as lots of peopel found they didn't like the lines.
But even if we assume you're right, how does the line demarcating a region suddenly become magically different from the line defining a larger region, i.e. a country?
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Dec 21, 2011 17:13:34 GMT 1
The regions have usually been around for a lot longer than the nation that now controls them. However, as you say the lines may have blurred over the years, so it is still problematic to a certain degree.
And it isn't a dodge about the referendum in Norway. Without the referendum Norway would not have got its independence.
And the borders of the internal countries of the Soviet states were drawn to fit what the Soviets wanted. If they wanted a bit of fertile soil that was on the border they would have taken it for themselves with no regard for history, language or culture.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Dec 22, 2011 8:29:27 GMT 1
No, what I'm asking is how these "regional" lines drawn on a map are different from these awful, ruling-class defined lines that you claim define nations
I didn't say it was. The dodge was to claim it was a "a decision by the people under control of the ruling classes." The nation was not defined by the ruling classes, but by its people.
Yes, and as soon as the Soviet jackboot was lifted off their throats, popular, nationalist sentiment in those countries saw them redefine those boundaries along ethnic, cultural lines.
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ab
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Post by ab on Dec 22, 2011 11:02:18 GMT 1
What you say makes a certain amount of sense AB. That is what I believe, that giving the regions more power will enhance democracy. I'd keep the overarching power with little power, but this may well mean that the regions like their autonomy a bit too much. However, the benefits of remaining within that structure need to be sold and strengthened. You'd probably end up with a watered down version of the EU as is now, but with regions rather than nations. Except that, other than you and I with my thought experiment on here, no-one appears to be proposing anything like this. The EU has been very keen to push regions as being the natural subdivisions of the EU but not as part of an exercise to devolve powers down from the EU to that local level. It might be seen to have an agenda that has some parallels with yours but with the crucial difference that the intention has been for nations to disappear by sending more of their powers up to the EU and the rest down to the regions so that they don't do much. The concept of subsidiarity (as it happens quite a big, albeit opaque, win for Major's efforts at Maastricht) if properly applied would help to shrink the EU's competence to a core while pushing decision-making down to the lowest local level practicable. That could be at national, regional or county level (or even more locally, to individual schools, hospitals, etc...), which would be a choice for the people within each country to make (eg via referendums for Scots and Welsh devolution, for a North East England assembly etc). It is actually a strong argument for saying that the current direction of travel of the EU is very much the wrong one and something that we should not be part of because each step taken in that direction is a step further away from achieving the "small state" federal USE with high levels of power and autonomy at regional level. Giving even more power to the centre of a 28 state EU to decide on economic policy is hardly consistent with letting the Cornishmen decide the big issues that face them without being thwarted by distant peoples who don't understand their issues.
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Dec 22, 2011 12:32:25 GMT 1
It's my dream really, so I know it is a long way off. However, I would still say that it's better to be involved trying to change the direction than walking away.
Bernie
The regional lines usually fall more naturally as rivers, mountains etc etc.
The referendum in Norway wouldn't have happened if the ruling class hadn't allowed it.
The boundaries of the countries of the former USSR almost wholly conform exactly to those set by the Soviets when creating the USSR. Independence didn't lead to them changing.
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Dec 22, 2011 12:37:53 GMT 1
8. A bit of Prussian history for you (and Dan). The Prussians were a slavic people, probably more closely related to the Lithuanians than the Poles. The Poles called in the Teutonic Knights to convert them to Christianity. They did so, so thoroughly and ruthlessly that they managed to carve out a state that ultimately too the name of the people and culture that they had suppressed, so that Prussian came to mean something completely different. How ironic that this Prussia went on to destroy Poland as a nation in the late 18th century. I believe most people would consider "Prussia" to be the state formed out of the House of Brandenburg. The fact that the region has a history prior to that is neither here nor there really and I'm not sure what it adds to your argument. You also seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that nations were created by the ruling classes against the will of the people. Whilst that might be true in some instances, the idea of nationalism in fact grew out of the people and ran counter to what the ruling classes believed. It's no coincidence that the rise of European nations coincides with the rise of the middle class in those countries; those at the top didn't really give a damn what the land they ruled was called or demarcated by, other than wanting it to be as large as possible, and those at the bottom had no say in anything. So, fun though this historical digression is, I don't see what it has to do with the EU other than the fact that you're arguing against boundaries in one instance and for them in another.
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ab
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Post by ab on Dec 22, 2011 13:16:47 GMT 1
If you want to go south and the others want to go north, what do you achieve by battling to make the others go NNW or NNE while you carry on southwards?
If walking off makes them think that perhaps it might not be such a good idea to go the way they were planning and that maybe you had a point (as appears to be happening) you've achieved more than you would have done by being part of the decision to go the wrong way.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Dec 22, 2011 14:07:00 GMT 1
Do they bollocks. Unless there's some geographical features between e.g West/South Glamorgan, Hampshire/Berkshire or Skåne/Småland I haven't heard about. This applies more to borders like Germany/France , France/Italy , France/Spain than it does to e.g. counties or departments. Plus, regional boundaries (in the UK &Sweden at least) have been jigged about for electoral purposes, pretty much the gold plated fucking definition of them being drawn by the ruling classes.
*sigh* yet the creation of Norway was not a case of "the ruling classes drawing the lines" it was a case of a bunch of people on the other side of a mountain range from Sweden, deciding they wanted to be a country. For fuck's sake.
In most cases the boundaries set by the USSR corresponded to the boundaries already declared by those states. The ruling class of the USSR just drew a big line around all of them. In the rest of Eastern Europe, East and West Germany rubbed out a line and reunited, Czechoslovakia split into two, Yugoslavia went bonkers. All on the back of nationalist sentiment, not some mythical ruling class line drawing. As Dan says, the ruling classes in e.g. the 18th century didn't give a chuff what they ruled as long as it was big - which is how we ended up with stuff like the Spanish Netherlands. Italy was formed as a result of chucking the ruling class out.
This "nations are lines drawn on a map by the ruling classes" argument is not only largely wrong, it's getting rather tedious.
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Dec 22, 2011 15:08:13 GMT 1
It is not largely wrong. At all. If you think the masses really had a say in how the boundaries of countries were defined you are mistaken. If you are bringing up Italy as an example then lets look at boundaries. France said they'd support the unification, so long as they could have a slice of land which they still own. Italian speaking Trentino remained part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the decision makers after WWI decided Italy could have it back.
Dan - So because people mistakenly believe that the Prussians are Germanic and that the original Prussians have been forgotten about, it means that we should just continue to ignore them? A crazy argument.
It doesn't matter who caused the uprising in countries, they largely still didn't influence boundaries which were and remain spurious lines on the map on the whole. Sorry to shatter your illusions.
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ab
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Post by ab on Dec 22, 2011 15:37:40 GMT 1
Any attempt to define an area or a people is going to have a degree of arbitrariness and have a proportion of the people contained within the definition contesting it. I seem to recall that brispie has previously opined on the arcane issue of whether Nottingham Forest ought to be called that given that it was technically outside the city boundaries so that Notts County, despite its name referencing Nottinghamshire was the only club in Nottingham. Perhaps they ought to be named North Atlantic Large Island Number 2 East Sub-Central Large Urban Area Number 1 Football Club 1 and 2 so as not to be definitionally contentious? There would still be an argument as to which was NALIN2ES-CLUAN1 FC 1 and NALIN2ES-CLUAN1 FC 2 - County could claim to be 1, Forest could dispute it on the basis of representing a larger body of actual active supporters. One would win that battle on history the other on democracy.
Where boundaries are nevertheless reasonably well settled and the people within them, even if not 100% happy with them, don't think them important enough to challenge and overturn it doesn't really matter if historically they were more contentious or that a previous population took a different view of them.
Moving to a concept of regions rather than nations is a semantic change for which there is currently not a massive universal swell of support. Maybe that could develop but the process for determining what was meant by the newly defined regions would be contentious and be resolved by partially arbitrary means (if a plebiscite is to be held, what proportion agreeing a particular definition would be sufficient, who gives the framers of the plebiscite the authority to do so, who is entitled to express their opinion in it?).
The only way to avoid such arbitrariness is to go for something much closer to anarchism (in the non-pejorative sense), with the definitions of regions being fluid. But it is hard to reconcile that with a deemed acceptance of a European or world authority that has not itself got a form of sovereignty and popular legitimacy with the people of the various regions within it.
It might nevertheless be a great thing to aspire to but how do you get from here to there? One thing is pretty certain, the direction of the development of the EU is not aiming at it so it is not a reason to support the EU other than in the abstract sense of "I like the idea of a body that brings together lots of peoples". But if that's the case, why not go the whole hog and argue that the UN ought to be the body that does this? Isn't the idea of Europe at least as arbitrary and created by "power" rather than the people as the idea of nations?
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Post by fgrfc_dan on Dec 22, 2011 15:49:55 GMT 1
Dan - So because people mistakenly believe that the Prussians are Germanic and that the original Prussians have been forgotten about, it means that we should just continue to ignore them? A crazy argument. No crazier than your argument, which appears to have lost all cohesion altogether now. I believe the assertion which sparked this was that Poland conquered Prussia, though you later argued against that yourself and then got yourself into some mess about who was Prussian and who wasn't. It doesn't matter who caused the uprising in countries, they largely still didn't influence boundaries which were and remain spurious lines on the map on the whole. Sorry to shatter your illusions. What illusions? I've never argued one way or the other about lines on the map, other than I don't see why you think the line dividing Wessex from Mercia is more natural than the one which divides France from Germany. They both arose for the same reason and are as valid as one another, except that one constitutes an actual real boundary and the other is merely a relic of the past. It might be an idea for you to stop arguing on the basis of historical nit-picking and read through all your posts so you can work out what you're actually trying to say because you've gone down so many cul-de-sacs and U-turns I'm finding it hard to keep track of it.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie on Dec 22, 2011 15:53:18 GMT 1
Better still, let's look at the fact that it was a collection of regions/city states that rebelled due to a vast uprising of popular will, in the face of some fairly serous attempts at repression by the "ruling class" in the form of the Austrian empire etc. There's a reason it's called a revolution, comrade.
Unless, according to you, they are "regional" boundaries within countries, which somehow magically become different. In much the same way as massive austerity imposed by some bugger you can't vote out is magically better than comparatively mild pruning by Cameron, who you can send packing.
It's all making my head spin. Or at least it would if I could take any of it seriously.
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ab
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Post by ab on Dec 22, 2011 15:58:19 GMT 1
Bernie, it is very simple. Brispie writes from an alternate universe where through a quirk of improbability, John Lennon's lyrics to Imagine have become the founding principles of ethics and political philosophy.
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brispie
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Post by brispie on Dec 22, 2011 16:41:28 GMT 1
Fuck me. It's all pretty coherent to me, but you bunch of pricks are obviously drunk. Or maybe I am?
The fundamentals really are that I prefer regionalism to nationalism, largely on the basis that this will improve democracy and that the regions are more stable than nation states.
I appreciate that we are a long way from this, but believe that we should continue to work with the EU rather than against them.
I appreciate that a lot of regions will be based upon previous states that will be spurious. However, they are far more established and less open to change. Nation state boundaries are notorious to change. Whereas many regions will have remained more or less unchanged for hundreds of years, one only has to look at a map of Europe 200 years ago to see how much nation boundaries have changed.
The Poles indirectly destroyed the original Prussians by inviting the Teutonic Knights in.
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