It’s Time to Question the Modern Nation-State Model of Governance

I typically try to avoid news on Sundays, but I spent much of yesterday in complete awe of the extraordinary strength and fortitude of the Catalan people in the face of totalitarian violence from the Spanish state against citizens attempting to vote in a peaceful referendum. Before you start telling me about how the vote is illegal and goes against the Spanish constitution, let me be perfectly clear. That line of thinking is entirely irrelevant to the point of this post.

Specifically, I believe humanity is reaching a point in its evolution, both from a consciousness perspective as well as a technological one, where we’ll begin to increasingly question many of our silly contemporary assumptions about how governance should work.  The primary one is this absurd notion that a nation-state should be seen as a permanent structure of political governance which only becomes dissolvable in the event of violent revolution or war.

When it comes to great leaps in human progress, a crucial component to lasting change is convincing enough people that a particular way of organizing human affairs is outdated and harmful. I think if we take a step back and look at how people are governed across the world, there are very few places where “the people” feel they live in societies in which they exert any sort of genuine political self-determination. When we look at the last few decades of political governance in the Western world, a march toward more and more centralized political power has been a facet of life in both the U.S and Europe. I believe this trend is being pushed to its breaking point, and groups of humans with common culture, language and interests will increasingly question whether massive nation-states (or wannabe super states like the EU) make sense. In the past five years alone, Scotland held a referendum on UK membership, Great Britain voted to leave the EU, and most recently, Catalonia took a major step toward independence with yesterday’s banned referendum.

Those who favor centralized power see these events and movements toward decentralized political power as inconvenient, intransigent outbursts from the ungrateful, unwashed masses. Movements which would best put down one way or the other in order to carry on with the business of further centralizing power. They view such burgeoning drives for political self-determination as temporary storms which the wise elders of centralization must merely ride out. Unfortunately for them, this is not the case.

If anything, we can expect many more movements for decentralized power in the decades ahead for two main reasons. First, the current system is simply not working for most people. Second, as we become more connected and conscious, we will invariably conclude that all human beings deserve to have a real choice in the type of governments they live under. The prevailing assumption that we’re simply born into a particular nation-state and must accept this situation for the rest of our days irrespective of how brutal, oppressive and dysfunctional it may be, is an irrational, inhumane and outdated perspective.

As things stand today, humans essentially have two choices when it comes to political life. We either accept the nation-state we’re born into and play the game to the best of our advantage, or we try to become citizens of another country with values that more align with our own. The only way to really shatter existing political power structures and form new ones is through violent revolution or war, which is an insane way of reorganizing matters of human governance. One of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s key arguments in casting the Catalan referendum as illegal is that Spain is an indivisible nation under the 1978 constitution. Let’s think about what this means in practice.

Anyone who’s spent any time in Spain understands how culturally and linguistically distinct many of the regions are when compared to Madrid. These are differences that go back centuries and can’t be brushed off by a constitution created a few decades ago. The idea that these various regions must be part of a centralized Spain even if the people within the regions want political autonomy is ethically preposterous, as well as authoritarian and evil in every sense of the word. If done properly, human governance should always be a voluntary arrangement. If an overwhelming majority of culturally distinct people within any nation-state decide the super state is no longer working for them, they should have every right to leave. Anything else is bondage.

As the U.S. Declaration of Independence so eloquently states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

The key aspect of the above declaration is that governments instituted among humans derive their powers from the consent of the governed. If we take the U.S. as an example, how do we know that the people of Texas and California believe centralized power in Washington D.C. as it stands today is an appropriate form of governance unless there’s a periodic vote confirming it? Did any of the 50 states ever actually consent to an out of control centralized deep state-run oligarchy running things as they please? Likewise, how do we know that the people of Catalonia consent to being part of Spain unless you ask them? The truth is you don’t, and this presents a major dilemma we must confront going forward.

If we look at the world’s nation-states, they generally consist of large, centralized political entities comprised of a union of culturally distinct provinces, states or regions. In some cases these regions voluntarily came together over time, while in other cases they were forced together during a war or revolution. It’s crucial that we not view such nation-states as Rajoy views them, as eternal structures that can never be altered, but rather as voluntary political associations. Again, the only way to know such associations are truly voluntary is to periodically subject them to referendums. It seems to me that this should be an integral part of any nation-state. In contrast, we have a name for power relationships that aren’t voluntary. Slavery.

Indeed, the fact that we put up with this at all is downright perplexing. For example, although we accept children should be under the care of parents from birth up to a certain point, at a certain age we pretty much all agree that an adult should be free to make autonomous decisions. While a human becomes free at this micro level upon reaching a certain age, at the macro level most human beings never get to choose what sort of government they live under. Most of us are not at all governed by consent, and this feels very wrong to me.

Beyond the ethical implications of imposed political governance, we should also discuss the way our current system ends up functioning in practice. If power hungry authoritarians understand that the bond which unites the various regions of a nation-state can never be questioned, power dynamics become very lopsided and increasingly centralized over time. In contrast, lets imagine that every 25 years, every defined region of every nation-state gets to vote on whether they want to stay part of the current governing structure or create a new one. Power might be much more distributed in the interim period under such a system, since there’s always a threat that one or many of the various states or provinces might choose to sever ties in a few short years. Such a system would be much more akin to a free market for political governance versus what we have today, which appears more in-line with a “divine right of kings,” feudal type system. I think we can do much better than this.

That being said, I don’t want anyone to assume that the hypothetical system I described above is what I think should happen. I’m just providing an extremely simplistic example to get people thinking. The key point is human beings should not be forced to live their entire lives under systems of involuntary political governance which they never agreed to in the first place.

We must figure out a way for human beings to peacefully and periodically alter the forms of government they live under in a major way should they choose to. Right now, the main options for achieving this sort of change tends to involve violence, which often leads to situations that are worse than they were before.

We need to agree that political associations should always be voluntary, and that most such associations worldwide right now are not. Rather, they are most often maintained via state violence, as we just witnessed in Spain. Our goal should be to live in a world defined by peaceful voluntary political associations, but getting from here to there won’t be easy or quick.

I hope I live long enough to see such a world.

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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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28 thoughts on “It’s Time to Question the Modern Nation-State Model of Governance”

  1. I agree entirely, of course. And many regions of this stewpot do not share values or culture … see ‘The American Nations’… and they never will be.

    Will it take… ‘forever’? It is surprising how quickly some changes come about.

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  2. Excellent summary. I am more optimistic, I believe it is no accident this is coming up now. If Catalans resort in any significant numbers to violence now they will delay their deserved autonomy. If they follow the Ghandian example things will change very quickly. This may well be the visible beginning of the end for the globalist mentality. You are quite correct, they are the contemporary version of ‘divine right of Kings’, and their time is done.

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    • I do not understand your point. What Michael says goes against what the globalists want. They want centralized power.

  3. I agree with what you say, but I have read that they want to join the EU, which seems counter to what they are doing. They will give up more autonomy to a more centralized power.

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  4. There is no overwhelming majority, that’s the problem, and both political leaderships are horrendous troublemakers, choosing not to reflect the will of the vast vast majority of people on the Iberian peninsular.

    Relevant to your main thesis, the central govt is a big fly in the ointment not allowing the majority to live happily together. And the Catalan leaders are the other side of the same coin.

    I am optimistic, that based on where it has come in the last 40 years, post dictatorship, far more relevant that the past 200 or 1000 years, Spain is the most likely and well placed nation to create its alternative to a nasty centralist diktat hangover from the post 1936 era.

    This guy has his finger on the pulse, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/02/catalonia-crisis-spain-referendum-independence?

    particularly important, but easy to underestimate is the importance of this sentence –

    “Spaniards have a healthily sceptical view of power. This anti-elitism can be seen in the daily (and nightly) life of any town, where people from different social classes share conversations in bars and restaurants.”

    I lived in Spain for 15 years, from traditional Castillon to Galicia, Andalucia. There is little to no class divide among the general population, in that plumbers are genuine friends, drinking buddies of lawyers; architects pick their kids up from the same school as the newly arrived Morrocan family whose dad is labouring on a site somewhere locally, and kids back from university chat amicably and respectfully in the nightclubs with the granny retired mayoress who still lives on the nearby farm. It is not an Anglo Saxon way of life.

    “Spain is an open country that has successfully integrated millions of immigrants without giving rise to a xenophobic party; it is one of the world’s most tolerant societies towards sexual minorities.”

    Relatively speaking there is no us and them. Did you know that 80% of 18-25’s were asked what was most importnt in their lives, said “family”. It is a very stable and grounded country, but traditional politics doesn’t function without enflaming conflict. Old guys in the bar shaking their heads, “the govt so obviously want to turn friends against each other”.

    Whilst there are pockets of nationalism in many states particularly around the coastal provinces, it is tolerated by the locals, not passively, but firmly and with patience and a pretty good humour, because the overwhelming majority want peace and harmony and many still remember what it was like under a real dictatorship with brothers killing brothers.

    Madrid govt is as you portray, centralist, dictatorial from on high, and are not a credit to the Spanish people’s attitude to democracy. The PP in particular are the slowest to shrug off the vestiges of 40 years of cruel dictatorship. Madrid and Catalunya have “history”, and the PP politicos were happy to use the Guardia Civil to keep that history as fresh as they can at the weekend.

    On the other side, the Catalan leadership is appalling too – they stage a referendum, that everyone in Catalunya knows has no legal basis with Madrid. The Catalan politicos also know from the previous referendum that at best 40% want to leave Spain yet still they trundle on, asking the question, do you want to leave or stay… with no explanation of what happens in the unlikely event it is a yes. Bar a few thousand voters, literally, only those who want to leave (2.2 million out of 5.something million) turned up to make their voice heard on Sunday. And still the Catalan leaders try to foment anger, to squeeze through the result they want, not abide by what the numbers would say.

    The concensus seems to be building already that Madrid needs to take a deep breath, accept they have blown any cover of “paternal, or benevolent” in the eyes of much of Spain and need to talk to Catalunya and be more like Westminster and Scotland, ie permit and support a full referendum so that a) ALL Catalans are voting and b) EVERYONE knows the consequences.

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  5. While I agree in essence with the overall comments, given my libertarian DNA, your post is very superficial and does not do a fair job with the following: (a) Yes, I agree that we´ll increasingly go to a more decentralized Governance model, but we should reach this model as a result of an agreement, not imposed and through anarchy which is what the Catalan politicians intend to do: They literally say they won´t obey any laws coming from the Central Government. (b) The catalan Government does not want decentralization, it wants power for itself, if you read the illegal “law” they passed on with an express way in the Catalan parliament, without allowing the rest of the opposition parties to voice their opinions, they would concentrate all power including naming all members of the Courts… so they want to oust “the repressive Central Government of Spain” with their own friends and family….history, specially the Middle East, is full of stories like this one. (c) If we defend liberty, then let´s do it 100% and all the way; the Catalan Government for example does not allow now school classes to be held in Spanish, despite Court Rulings in the contrary, and has been imposing a biased and radical vision of life, Spain and everything to school children, which explains the bulk of those protesting are youngsters. (d) The so called Referendum had multiple animalities, like people voting 5 times, no cental census, no auditing, etc. This is not serious and its not the method us libertarians wish for our cause to prevail. (e) Only 2,1 M of the 7,5 M catalans voted yes to independence in the mock referendum, if we are about liberty, which we are, where do we leave the rights of the remaining 5,5M?
    Happy to hear everyone´s thoughts. Thanks and best regards

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  6. It seems somewhat self-evident that local governance would be more accountable since local ‘leaders’ have to look their constituents in the eye after making decisions, with more distant bureaucrats and their ‘bosses’ far more removed and unaccountable. But I fear, and certainly this seems to be the case in many circumstances, that the ‘leadership’ simply shifts from distant oligarchs to local ones, particularly in densely populated urban centres where local politicians can still maintain a ‘distant’ relationship with citizens, surrounding themselves with like-minded and supportive personnel–thereby avoiding contact with those most impacted by their decisions. It seems to me that representative government is anything but representative regardless of scale so long as the people’s voice is rarely, if ever, heard. Perhaps the answer is periodic plebiscites and referenda where more input into decision-making can be had. Smaller is better, most certainly.

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  7. The problem is complex, but only an idiot thinks the current system is working – either in Spain or here. Olduvai.Ca sees the problem clearly. At all levels. Those we elect act as if they are the ruling class to the peasants. Questioning their decisions quickly earns their derision.

    Thanks to government education and corrupt media, many have no concept about the proper role of government and the consequences of centralized control. I suggest readers peruse the Acts of Reconstruction to see how we went from a federalist system to a national system, and the complete destruction of the 10th amendment. The 14th Amendment forever changed our system of government and it was no accident. Instead of being united states we are a nation of 50 counties. This is truly centralized government on steroids.

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  8. I am curious… does this mean you believe the Civil War was unjustified, and that the Confederacy should have been allowed to secede from the Union?

    Does the US just allow any and all states, or groups of states, to split off and form their own country?

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    • In any just union there should be a relatively simple process for states to leave these United States (or any other nation-state) should they want to in my opinion. The post was intentionally broad, not offering specific solutions, but getting people to start to demand that all political associations should be voluntary and subject to somewhat regular referendums (every couple of decades perhaps).

      The Civil War? I’m not happy about any wars. Obviously, there are times when violence is necessary in self-defense. Could there have been less violent ways to have ended the repulsive practice of slavery in mid-19th Century America with less killing? I don’t know. I’d have to study the time period for a few years straight to have an informed opinion on that.

    • The War For Southern Independence was not about slavery. It was under no threat from Lincoln and was Constitutionly protected. At worse for the South he would have prevented the spread of slavery into the new territories.

      The secession actually helped the cause of the abolitionists. It would have stopped the spread into the new territories and the free states would no longer be required to return runaway slaves. Also, the U.S. could now treat the South as any other nation it had moral differences with.

      I see Lincolns actions as the start of the end of us being a Constitutional Republic.

    • Tim, Why shouldn’t the state’s that wanted to leave be allowed to do so? After all, it was a compact between states to form a government. The states founded the government they wanted, but as Michael stated, the DOI emphatically states that not only can, but we should get rid of that government when it becomes oppressive. The South was getting taxed to death. In fact, taxes under Lincoln’s predecessors made King George look like a piker.

      There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that forbids states from succeeding. Right now it sounds like a viable option to many of us. Easy? Absolutely not. But the state’s are no longer the laboratories of freedom for which they were intended, primarily because of the 14th Amendment. By the way, it could be contended that the 14th was never properly ratified as a number of states signed under duress. If one reads the comments made by Sen. Blaine and others one cannot help question their motives.

  9. Look, Spain is totally screwed if Catalonia leaves. The total debt load of the Spanish government and all of the autonomous provinces places it in the PIIGS category of EU trouble spots. Letting the most valuable province go would put its finances into a tailspin, and the resulting cascade of defaults would likely set the dominoes falling in all the other PIIGS states. I suspect the ECB is encouraging Madrid to use a heavy hand to ensure its finances remain loyal to Brussels. The alternative can get real ugly: does Catalonia expect to take upon itself its larger-than-average share of the Spanish national debt as a price of independence? Maybe. But would it really saddle itself with its own portion of Valencia’s, Extremadura’s, or Andalusia’s debt as well? I would think not. At least Madrid can guarantee their outrageous debts, but Catalonia will not!

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  10. I shared this article with author and lecturer Terry Boardman http://threeman.org in the UK because he has written a lot on the nation-state, what it is and isn’t, etc. Here is his response:

    ‘If an overwhelming majority of culturally distinct people within any nation-state decide the super state is no longer working for them, they should have every right to leave. Anything else is bondage.’

    “That may right as far as Brexit is concerned. But only 2 out of the 7 million eligible to vote in Catalonia voted. Admittedly 90% of that 2 million voted for secession, but 2 out of 7 million is no overwhelming majority. A lot of Catalans don’t want secession. However, the EU elite WOULD like to see more nation states broken up, because it’d be easier for them to enforce their will over small statelets like Catalonia (the Catalan Indy people want to join the EU, of course) than over large states like Spain, Germany, France, Italy. This has long been an EU elite aim – to break up multicultural states into monocultural ones, the easier to incorporate these smaller units into their great, abstract, anti-democratic, centralised, unitary, crypto-fascist federation. Different countries and regions have different biographies. Spain cannot be simplistically compared to the UK or the US.”

    What I’m wondering is: Is there a difference between a nation-state and a superstate?

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    • As I’ve written before, I think the future will be a decentralized one. If the current nation-states in the EU break apart into smaller units, I do not see the EU surviving in its current form, and anything that follows on would be much less powerful and centralized in my opinion. I would also add that the EU response thus far does not make it seem as if EU elites are happy about what is happening in Catalonia at all.

      I do agree that the vote held Sunday wasn’t a true expression of the independence view of Catalans, because those opposed to independence clearly didn’t vote. I would be in favor of another vote that is not fought by Madrid so the people can have their say, which I believe is their right as human beings.

  11. Re Civil War and succession

    ” there should be a relatively simple process for states to leave ”

    I would think just the opposite: it is very complex to leave because of all the interdependencies, both explicit and implicit. Let’s start with the obvious, taking Texas as an example. How much of the national debt should be transferred to Texas? SHould we make Texas pay for a wall, since that would be the most natural way for Mexican to get to the US? Then what about implicit assumptions like national defense? Texas has no Navy, but in reality doesn’t need one becuase it would be implicitly protected by the US. Shoudl Texas be forced to contribute to the US Defense costs? What kind of trade policy should exist between the US and Texas? Would they still use US currency? What happens to the state bonds that they issued,now that they won’t be implicitly backed by the US?

    Just look at how Brexit is going, and that is a departure between an independant nation and a trade union that has only existed for a few years.
    Michael, the problem is that ther

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    • Very good points and I do not for a moment disagree that many very difficult questions would have to be addressed. To clarify, by “simple” I didn’t necessarily mean easy. In other words I am not talking about a simple majority wanting to leave, I think the threshold should be far higher than that. What I meant is that there should be a straight-forward and regular process for such a thing. Every generation should indeed have a say at least once in their lives, probably twice about what sort of political state they wish to be a part of. Anything else is unethical and leads to increased centralization over time in my view.

      Once we can agree that this needs to be a part of a human being’s political life, then we would also have to come up with ways to handle the many issues you raise. I think the importance of human political associations being voluntary and regularly put to a referendum is of extreme importance and we can figure out a way to make it happen.

  12. With regard to Btn’s very valid questions.

    The first thing that has to happen in the US is a Constitutional Convention and a re-write of the Constitution to bring it up to modern times. As the original framers did a very good job of providing for that inevitability because they knew that their world was very different from what the world would be like in the distant future. We are now in that distant future.

    So a Constitutional Convention would allow for a complete reorganization of the Republic, and would be the perfect time to address how to provide a framework for States that may or may not want to secede.

    In my opinion, none of the States would want to secede after a reset because it would behoove them to remain in the Republic for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which would be more States rights.

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    • This addresses a key point I wanted to make in the piece. Which is that the mere threat of secession on a regular basis will give regions (states) far more leverage and reduce the tendency for centralization since the threat of secession is always there. In fact, the end result would likely be less secession but more decentralization of power.

  13. As an add-on.

    After watching Ken Burns “Vietnam” documentary last week, it brought back home again what an atrocity it was to use forced conscription (aka/ “The Peacetime Draft”) to make men go fight in a brutal war that had absolutely nothing to do with defending the country.

    The same can be said for the Korean War. But Vietnam caused the country to almost come apart at the seems because at least the US fought the Korean War to win. Whereas the oligarchs never really intended to win the war in Vietnam. It was nothing more than a chess piece in a geopolitical chess match.

    It was at that point in history where the US nation-state essentially became a police state.

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    • re – this thread as a whole. Great points all the way here, a really refreshing and intelligent conversation. I just wanted to point out that I think the real tension we all face in this is the question of sovereignty. The Madrid Government response has revealed quite clearly the forces behind them, and one way or another they are not the future. The Catalan ‘leaders’ themselves may well be nothing more than a smaller-scale version of this power-grubbing tendency in immature human beings. As sovereign beings we have a natural right to consent to our social arrangements – and so Michael’s point regarding at least a once in a generation renewal or rearrangement of social order is a natural bare minimum. I did not consent to this society and its order, not in any meaningful sense – and current systems have no plans in place to allow that for me, or for my son. On the contrary, they actively resist it. This cannot stand. So called ‘democratic’ governments simply assume this sovereignty, largely relying on the ignorance and related apathy of the ‘subjects’ whose sovereignty they effectively usurp. I think this period of history is ending. If I recall correctly the Greek concept of Koinonia has it that the natural limit for a functioning human society whose members can preserve their autonomy and sovereignty is around 100,000 members. Clearly our modern society would need a drastic transformation to reorganise properly bearing ideas like this in mind – certainly in terms of creating a proper balance between the appropriate powers of each ‘group’, and the relevant powers of ‘international’ bodies appropriate to global, collective needs. We are a long way from achieving something that functions more properly right now, but now is the time to start the conversation, and this thread has given me real optimism that we really do have a chance to step up and make this happen. Db

  14. Slavery? That undermines the history of actual slavery. In any case, under your definition a person who happened to live in an area that disagreed w/ a successful independence would also be a “slave”.

    In any case the rise of nation states have resulted in one of the most (if not the most) peaceful and prosperous times in human history. Your articles are full of complaints and help stir opposition and distrust but offer no realistic solutions or data to suggest that your ideas are preferable.

    Living in a modern democratic nation is about as far from any realistic definition of slavery that you can get.

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    • a subtle prison is still a prison… and if you believe that you, or anyone around you, is free from the manipulations and predations of a well-embedded so-called elite then their work is well accomplished in your case. The history you speak of is a purposely crafted story, precisely to keep you placated.

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