Abstract
This year, 2019, marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ludwig von Mises’s lesser known book, Nation, State, and Economy, which appeared in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. One of its leading themes was to trace out the interactions between language, nationalism, and the emergence of the political movement for national self-determination. On this basis, Mises formulated an explanation of nationalist imperialism within parts of, especially, Central and Eastern Europe where there were territories with overlapping linguistic or ethnic groups. Out of this came his proposed answer to national and ethnic conflicts through a system of plebiscites for a greater degree of individual self-determination to minimize intergroup tensions between and within nation-states. His proposal is then applied for an analysis of the recent international controversies over the Russian annexation of Crimea and the United Kingdom’s vote to secede from the European Union.
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Notes
When in January 1793 a messenger was sent to inform the revolutionary French forces in the east of the country, who were facing the invading armies of anti-revolutionary foreign monarchs, that the French king had been executed, one of the French officers asked, “For whom shall we fight from now on,” if not the king? The reply was, “For the nation, for the Republic.” (Kohn 1967, p. 47). And matching this was the economic conscription of men, women and children throughout France to defend the revolution. Said the French revolutionary, Barere, in 1793: “Some owe [France] her industry, others their fortune; some their advise, others their arms; all owe her their blood.” Quoted in (Ebeling 1990, p. 149)
Explained German economist, Gustav Stolper in the early 1930s (quoted in Ebeling 1994, p. 71): “Just as the war for the first time in history established the principle of universal military service, so for the first time in history it brought national economic life in all its branches and activities to the support and service of state politics – made it effectively subordinate to the state . . . Not supply and demand, but the dictatorial fiat of the state determined economic relationships – for production, consumption, wages, cost of living . . . At the same time, and for the first time, the state made itself responsible for the physical welfare of its citizens; it guaranteed food and clothing not only to the army in the field but to the civilian population as well . . . Here is a fact pregnant with meaning: the state became for a time the absolute ruler of our economic life, and while subordinating the entire economic organization to its military purposes, also made itself responsible for the welfare of the humblest citizen, guaranteeing him a minimum of food, clothing, heating and housing.” And, also, as Norman Angell, the 1933 Nobel Peace Prize recepient, observed shortly after the end of the First World War: “For very many, as the War went on and increasing sacrifices of life and youth were demanded, new light was thrown upon the relations of the individual to the State. A whole generation of young Englishmen was suddenly confronted with the fact that their lives did not belong to themselves, that each owed his life to the State. But if each must give, or at least risk, everything that he possessed, even life itself, were others giving or risking what they possessed? Here was new light on the institution of private property. If the life of each belongs to the community, then assuredly does his property . . . The wearing down of the distinction between the citizen and the State, and the inroads upon the sacrosanctity of private property and individual enterprise, make each citizen much more dependent upon his State, much more a part of it. Control of foreign trade so largely by the State has made international trade less a matter of processes maintained by individuals who disregarded their nationality, and more a matter of arrangement between States, in which the non-political individual activity tends to disappear. We have here a group of forces that has achieved a revolution, a revolution in the relationship of the individual European to the European State, and of the States to one another.” (Angell 1921, pp. 71 & 73)
On Mises’s work at the Chamber of Commerce both before and after the First World War, see (Ebeling 2010, Ch. 4 & 5, pp. 57–140).
Cf. Max Hildebert Boehm (1937, p.232): “Perhaps the most important factor in modern nationalism is language. The concept of a mother tongue has made language the source from which springs all intellectual and spiritual existence. The mother tongue represents the most suitable expression of spiritual individuality. The development of philology since the middle of the eighteenth century cannot be understood without this basis supposition, according to which language is represented as the key to the most essential characteristics of a people and its culture. A people not only transmits the store of all its memories through the vocabulary of its language, but in syntax, word sound and rhythm it finds the most faithful expression of its temperament and general emotional life.” And, Walter Sulzbach (1943, p. 45): “Language differences separate the various groups more obviously than any other cause except color of the skin. When we say that we ‘understand’ our compatriots better than other folks, we may be referring to spiritual harmony, but it is more likely that we simply mean that we speak the same language.”
Cf. Hans Kohn (1944, p. 263): “The era of Enlightenment that spread with French influence witnessed the height of cosmopolitanism and the beginning of nationalism; the exaltation of the individual and a new sense of national unity; an enthusiastic faith in the future and an awakening of interest in the past of the peoples, their customs and folkways; an unquestioning acceptance of reason as the guiding principle of man and world and an appeal to the forces of the heart.”
Or as Carlton Hayes later expressed it (1931, pp. 37–38): “National self-determination was a natural corollary alike to the doctrine of nationalism and to that of democracy. Both involved the recognition of the right of individuals in any region to determine not only under what government they would live but also to what state they would belong. If the people in a particular region, hitherto not a part of France, wish to be French, their wishes should be respected . . . The wishes of the people of such a region could easily be ascertained by letting them vote, or as the French revolutionaries styled it, by holding a plebiscite . . . Foreign peoples did not have to join France. But in the interests of humanity they should exercise the right of national self-determination. They should destroy tyrants and freely choose to live under a government of their own making which would guarantee them the blessings of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Only thereby could the international peace and universal brotherhood be secured.” Also, (Hayes 1937, p. 245): “Let each nation like every individual exercise the right of self-determination; then, according to liberal doctrine, each would eschew imperial ambitions and monopolistic enterprises and pursue policies of free trade and peace.”
Cf., A. J. P. Taylor (1948, p. 173): “In another way, the Austrian state suffered from its strength: it never had its range of activity cut down during a successful period of laissez-faire, and therefore the openings for national conflict were far greater. There were no private schools or hospitals, no independent universities; and the state in its infinite paternalism, performed a variety of services from veterinary surgery to the inspecting of buildings. The appointment of every schoolteacher, of every railway porter, of every hospital doctor, of every tax collector, was a signal of national struggle. Besides, private industry looked to the state for aid from tariffs and subsidies; these, in every country, produce ‘logrolling,’ and nationalism offered an added lever with which to shift the logs. German industries demanded state aid to preserve their privileged position; Czech industries demanded state aid to redress the inequalities of the past.”
Mises explained: “It is impossible in a nationality mixed city to create two police forces, perhaps a German and a Czech, each of which could take action only against members of its own nationality. It is impossible to create a double railroad administration in a bilingual country, one under the control only of Germans, a second only of Czechs.” (Mises 1919, p. 53)
As a practical matter, the Spanish government said it would vote against accepting Scotland as a new independent member of the EU; the reason being that the Spanish government is concerned that this would reinforce those in the region of Catalonia who want an independent Catalonian state, under the reasoning that if the Scots could break away from the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union, why could not Catalonia do the same. Thus, to dampen the demands for secession and independence for a part of their own state, the Spanish government has said it would vote against the wishes of the Scottish people to remain a partner of Spain in the EU.
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Ebeling, R.M. Liberalism, nationalism, and self-determination: Ludwig von Mises’s Nation, State, Economy after 100 years. Rev Austrian Econ 32, 191–204 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-019-00448-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-019-00448-x