{"id":51944,"date":"2025-09-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.11onze.cat\/?p=51944"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:28:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T14:28:38","slug":"them-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.11onze.cat\/en\/magazine\/them-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Them [and us]"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Newton’s first law states that an object always tends to be either at rest or in motion, rectilinear motion, unless an external force alters its state. Therefore, if a centripetal force acts on this object, it will be trapped by an invisible force called the central force. In this way, the object will see its movement altered, its inertia modified, and it will be difficult for it to return to its original physical state.<\/b><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Aragonese economist and historian Jos\u00e9 Larraz L\u00f3pez, a distinguished member of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, wrote an interesting book on economics in 1943 entitled \u2018La \u00e9poca del mercantilismo en Castilla (1500-1700)\u2019. He was a procurator in Franco’s Cortes and Franco’s minister in 1939, just after the end of the civil war – and therefore a man committed to Franco’s dictatorship to the bone – and <\/span>when referring to the unity of Spain, he argued that the political reality of that time – between the 15th and 18th centuries – had been very different from that of his own time<\/b>. Consequently, we could not speak of the existence of a single unitary state – Spain – for all those centuries, which would be the case after the arrival of the Bourbons.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact is that both <\/span>Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Le\u00f3n and Castile – the original core of the kingdom – and the three Basque provinces – Alava, Guip\u00fazcoa and Vizcaya – plus Extremadura, Andalusia and Murcia will end up forming part of the same integrated body<\/b>. In this way, the central part of the Iberian Peninsula – the area stretching from the Cantabrian coast to the Strait of Gibraltar – will end up sharing the same border, and the same Cortes will legislate the territories – the Castilian Cortes – which will use the same currency and all together will follow the same economic and fiscal policy. Pardon, except for the three Basque provinces which, from the 14th century onwards, would be exempt from all Castilian taxes. It is therefore clear that the other peninsular territories – Portugal and the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation – were never part of this Castilian matrix.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, in the mid-15th century,<\/span> the Iberian Peninsula was divided into five political blocs of unequal importance: Portugal, the territories of the Crown of Castile, the Kingdom of Navarre, the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation and the Muslim Emirate of Granada<\/b>. In fact, by the middle of the 15th century, each of these groups of territories would eventually acquire a very distinct personality and become original societies with their own customs, their own legal peculiarities, their own institutions and even their own language.<\/span><\/p>\n

That a historian of the darkest period of the dictatorship – such as Jos\u00e9 Larraz L\u00f3pez – should serve to combat the colossal misinformation or ignorance wanted by current Spanishism should shame a part of the political class, the media – including the \u2018influencers\u2019 hidden behind the networks – who time and again, <\/span>from their supreme tribunes, have not tired and will never tire of proclaiming the existence of a unitary Spain for more than five hundred years<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Castilian oligarchy -for too long and although speaking Catalan in private-repeats over and over again <\/span>the same mistake when they speak of Spain as a political reality since the 15th century, referring to it as \u2018the oldest nation in Europe<\/b>\u2019. If they understood once and for all that from the 15th century to the early 18th century, Castile pursued a policy of zero integration of the Mediterranean – and Portuguese – world, and that this was only possible through the use of force, combined with persistent repression and a constant plundering of economic resources in order to modulate their legitimate aspirations, it would surely help them to understand many issues that happen to us today as a state. More specifically, it would help them to understand that <\/span>the Spanish project – as it has been set out since the arrival of the Bourbons – is totally unsustainable.<\/b><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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\u201cIn the mid-15th century, the Iberian Peninsula was divided into five political blocs of unequal importance: Portugal, the territories of the Crown of Castile, the Kingdom of Navarre, the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation and the Muslim Emirate of Granada.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n\n Oriol Garcia Farr\u00e9, historian and 11Onze agent<\/span>\n <\/blockquote>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The beginning of the Hispanic divergences<\/b><\/h3>\n

After the Navas de Tolosa, Castile definitively entered the interior of the lower Meseta, which provoked a period of extreme euphoria in view of the possibilities offered by the new territory. But <\/span>it soon realised that, despite its determination, it was encountering the same problem that Le\u00f3n had encountered at the end of the 12th century<\/b>. It was after the Concordia de Benavent – the agreement on the purchase of the kingdom of Le\u00f3n by Castile – that Castile – except the Nazar\u00ed Kingdom – acquired practically the current perimeter.<\/span><\/p>\n

The lower plateau, with its mountainous and rugged terrain -especially in the areas closest to the Central system-had land that was unsuitable for agriculture -except for the Guadalquivir valley-, with scarce and poor quality pastures, which, added to the strong climatic variability between summer and winter, were too adverse factors to be able to take control quickly. In addition, there were three even more determining factors: the low birth rate of the population in the north, the lack of mobility of inhabitants from the north to the south – despite the promotion of the \u2018presuras\u2019 or territorial divisions – and<\/span> the consequences of applying an excessively repressive policy against the native population – by arguing nonsense – which culminated in the expulsion of the Andalusian Moriscos<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

All these factors would have a very negative impact on the Castilian economy because any manufacturing and commercial activity, such as trade with the East or Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar, would be nipped in the bud. In any case, <\/span>the Monarchy – in order to prolong its expansionary policy – continued to need to increase its regular income,<\/b> which contributed to a situation of extreme inflation, resulting in a monetary alteration and generating a permanent deficit in its balance of trade.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a solution,<\/span> the Monarchy exerted strong fiscal pressure on some sectors of the population – such as the Jews, for example – but above all on the great transhumant herds of the upper plateau<\/b>, just at the time when both Flanders and northern Italy were becoming the great buyers of Castilian wool. This plains traffic had catapulted Burgos to the forefront of European cities and turned the Cantabrian Sea into an important maritime axis towards Europe, which stimulated the birth of a textile industry. But all this faded away as soon as <\/span>the interests of the nobility – the owners of the land, based on ancient rights of conquest – prevailed over any private initiative of the plainsmen<\/b>, which made it impossible for the economy to flourish in the following centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faced with economic suffocation, the Monarchy – in order to boost the economy – resorted to the credit offered by the Jewish communities settled in the main Hispanic cities. So it was, sooner rather than later, that <\/span>kings, nobles, military orders, ecclesiastical communities and \u2018councils\u2019 – and even individuals or \u2018situados\u2019, as they were known at the time – ended up abusing credit<\/b>, which in the long run became a real internal problem. Faced with the heavy indebtedness of the Castilian public treasury, the Monarchy – as a result of the generalisation of non-payments – began to reform its financial system, although the real trigger was the promulgation of the Edict of Granada – also known as the Decree of the Alhambra – by which the Catholic Monarchs decreed the expulsion of all Jews from the Hispanic territories, which meant obtaining large assets for the Monarchy in the short term.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the rest of the peninsular territories – above all the Mediterranean and the Portuguese Atlantic world – they were able to find in the sea a lever for growth that allowed them to continue with their expansionist policies. For example, <\/span>the Catalan commercial bourgeoisie was able to take advantage of the consequences of the war with France – the famous crusade of Philip Ardid – to boost its manufacturing industry<\/b>. The creation of the Consulates of the Sea and the extension of old maritime routes – begun in the 10th century – were the mechanisms of penetration that the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation used to satisfy the demand for its products – rags, iron tools, coral, leather, spices and slaves – both in the mainland markets – Lisbon, Donostia, Bilbao and Seville – and in the foreign markets of Sardinia, Sicily, Bruges, Constantinople, Tunisia and Alexandria.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

A territory made up of free people<\/b><\/h3>\n

From the beginning of feudal expansion – at the beginning of the 9th century – <\/span>the territories of the northwest peninsular were configured under the juridical-administrative formula of \u2018dominium\u2019<\/b>, based on Roman law, which meant that the holder of the land property was a \u2018dominus\u2019 or lord. Therefore, the king or the count – the highest figure in the social pyramid – from the beginning became the final owner – directly or indirectly – of all those lands that were expropriated.<\/span><\/p>\n

It should be borne in mind that no lord would have the slightest interest in owning land, water, herds or mills if there were no peasants capable of organising stable work processes that would lead to the conversion of effort into income. Therefore, with the creation of Extremadura from the 9th century onwards,<\/span> the Castilian-Leonese expansionist policy was implemented by means of the \u2018villa and land\u2019 communities, which would become the key element of political-legal organisation within the \u2018new expropriated territories\u2019<\/b>. In this way, the landscape of the Meseta was articulated on the basis of the foundation of a series of major towns – walled and with representation in the Castilian Cortes – on which depended six or eight unwalled hamlets located around the main town.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the lords, the real danger lay in the existence – within that vast territory – of <\/span>free peasant communities that could escape the new jurisdiction<\/b>. For this reason, they created mechanisms that involved a brutal indebtedness of those communities of \u2018villa and land\u2019 through the famous settlement charters or \u2018asentamientos\u2019 and the \u2018presura\u2019 contracts, so that they would lose all possible mobility, remain attached to the land and, in this way, ensure the return of the debts contracted.<\/span><\/p>\n

And since the king’s life was so \u2018sacrificial\u2019 – it still is today when they indulge in the luxury of elephant hunting – they ended up ceding the land for services rendered to other lords, ecclesiastical bodies or monasteries. Therefore, it depended on who was the final rentier – that is, the owner – whether the land was known as \u2018realengas\u2019, if it belonged to the king; if it belonged to an abbot or a bishop; \u2018de solariego\u2019, if it belonged to a nobleman or a military order; or de \u2018behetr\u00eda\u2019, if it was the villagers themselves who chose the lord. In the long run, <\/span>all these types of property would contribute to the formation of the large estates of the region – known as the process of \u2018seigniorialisation\u2019<\/b> – which, from the 14th century onwards, would lead to the concentration of much power, both economic and territorial, in a very small part of the Castilian population.<\/span><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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“From the 9th century onwards, the Castilian-Leonese expansionist policy was implemented by means of the \u2018villa and land\u2019 communities, which would become the key element of political-legal organisation within the new expropriated territories<\/b>.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n\n Oriol Garcia Farr\u00e9, historian and 11Onze agent<\/span>\n <\/blockquote>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Towards a new conception of the state<\/b><\/h3>\n

At the end of the 15th century, <\/span>the Castilian-Leonese world would end up \u2018expropriating\u2019 some 385,000 km\u00b2 of land <\/b>– between the upper and lower plateau – on which nearly four and a half million people would live, including the Nassari population. In the rest of the peninsula, the population would be distributed as follows: in the territories of the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation, about nine hundred thousand people would live on about 110,000 km\u00b2; about one hundred and twenty thousand people would live on 11,000 km\u00b2 in Navarre; and in Portugal, one million people would live on 88,000 km\u00b2.<\/span><\/p>\n

Castile, although it was the largest territory in the Iberian Peninsula, <\/span>continued to experience continuous economic and demographic problems<\/b>, mainly driven by the process of consolidation of \u2018seigniorialisation\u2019, to the detriment of the exhausted expansive economy, which had been based on the indiscriminate expropriation of land and the reallocation of property through physical coercion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, during the second half of the 15th century, <\/span>the Castilian Monarchy began a process of economic transformation through monetary and fiscal reform<\/b>, which led to a major social imbalance, to the point that it ended up having a direct impact on noble interests. As a result, major disturbances broke out throughout the kingdom and, unable to calm things down, the Monarchy applied a policy of manorial satisfaction by offering more land, more rights and more pensions for life at the expense of the public treasury and financed by a special tax on the population of the towns of the \u2018Comuneros0. To top it all off, in the early 16th century, the main Communities of Castile were forced to assume a considerable tax to cover the purchase of the Imperial title – by the Habsburg family – which led to the famous Revolt of the \u2018Comuneros\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even so, this policy had an insufficient impact in placating the ambitions of the nobility, which brought to light the existence of a much deeper division within the Castilian aristocracy. The existence of two politically antagonistic factions soon became apparent: on the one hand, there were the Pacheco, Villena and Gir\u00f3n families, who were in favour of taking a more active part in the kingdom’s major political decisions and therefore saw the need to weaken the Monarchy in order to control it. On the other hand, there were the Santillanas and Mendozas who understood that the time had come to abstain from power because <\/span>the Monarchy was the one that had to guarantee the stability of the kingdom to ensure its \u2018seigniorial\u2019 privileges<\/b>… \u2018in saecula saeculorum\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the Castilian Civil War (1475-1479), <\/span>the two largest territories of the Iberian Peninsula – the Kingdom of Castile and the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation – created a new political entity known as the Hispanic Monarchy<\/b>, which was soon joined by Granada (1492), Portugal (1497) and Navarre (1512). That new dynastic state was shaped by the union of only two key elements: the army and foreign policy. For the rest of the elements that would make up the modern state, such as borders, currencies, laws and institutions, they remained completely separate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, <\/span>the configuration and distribution of power – agreed by both sides at the Concordia de Segovia – was structured as follows:<\/b> while Castile was structured according to the sacralised authority of the queen and always above the nobility and the church – thanks to an effective policy of numbing the Cortes – the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation was organised around the Constitution of Observance, which would always oblige the king to govern and make agreements in accordance with the laws of the Principality.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the long run, Castile would offer less resistance to the Hispanic monarchs, something that would not happen within the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation, which, while respecting all its legal-political realities, would end up limiting the non-agreed initiatives between the different arms – count-king, nobility, clergy and honest citizens – that would represent part of the confederate society. The historian John Elliott in his famous book \u2018Imperial Spain (1469-1716)\u2019 very aptly defined it as follows:<\/span> the Spanish sovereigns (Castilians) were absolute kings in Castile and constitutional monarchs in Aragon (Catalonia<\/b>).<\/span><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe Spanish (Castilian) sovereigns were absolute kings in Castile and constitutional monarchs in Aragon (Catalonia).\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n\n John H. Elliott (1930-2022)\u200b, english Hispanist<\/span>\n <\/blockquote>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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The unconscious empire<\/b><\/h3>\n

Only chance and the trade winds led <\/span>the first navigators of the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation to the most populated area of the American continent<\/b>. From the very beginning of the westward voyages, the first navigators were certain and aware that where they had arrived was not the East Indies, but a completely different territory. Realising this fact, the Castilian Monarchy deployed all its modern legal and administrative machinery to legitimately possess it. Without entrusting itself to anyone and by right of conquest, the Monarchy once again claimed ownership of those territories, ignoring the indigenous population.<\/span><\/p>\n

The discovery of important deposits of precious metals – between Mexico and Peru – led to the founding or re-founding of important American cities, which acquired a new territorial role in order to ensure a regular flow of wealth to Castile. Thus, <\/span>acting as nouveau riche, Castile would spend an indecent amount of economic resources to build its concept of civilisation, based on Catholicism<\/b>. This obsession – sometimes uncontrolled – would lead them to embark on a myriad of conflicts of all kinds, such as theological disputes, family conflicts, commercial affairs or lavish megalomaniac constructions.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, at the beginning of the 17th century,<\/span> the American mines began to show signs of depletion, which became more pronounced as the century progressed<\/b>. Faced with this slowdown, and in order to maintain the same rate of expenditure, the Monarchy resorted to loans from German banks – the Fuggers and the Welsers – and the Genoese banks of the Spinola, Centurione, Balbi, Strata and, above all, Gio Luca Pallavicino families. It would then be forced to raise taxes and exert fiscal pressure on the whole of Hispanic society. We remember the famous \u2018Union of Arms\u2019 of the Duke of Olivares. Faced with a generalised avalanche of non-payments, <\/span>the State entered into a process of successive bankruptcies<\/b> (1627, 1647, 1652 and 1662), which contributed to projecting a very unfavourable image of Spain in the eyes of the other European chancelleries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spain’s history is<\/span> still stigmatised today by a \u2018black legend\u2019 conceived between the 16th and 17th centuries – both by the Lutherans of Wittenberg and the Dutch of Dillenburg <\/b>– which sought to chip away at its hegemony in the world. Subsequently, in order to control the raw materials of the Castilian and Portuguese colonies, the English would amplify Protestant propaganda as a key element of discrediting the colonial elites, something that would help them to initiate and finance the independence processes of the Spanish colonies throughout the 19th century.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

The Bourbon drift<\/b><\/h3>\n

Castile – and later Spain – has always found itself in a dangerous vicious circle<\/b>, in which the State’s expenditure has been excessive, and it has needed to continually increase taxes to balance its income, which has led – over a prolonged period of time – to an excessive fiscal pressure on the population as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

With the entry of the Bourbons – after a long campaign to discredit the Habsburgs –<\/span> the economic problems worsened when, through the use of continuous loans, on-lending, negotiations and renegotiations<\/b>, these only served to satisfy their personal \u2018grandeur\u2019, to the detriment of the modernisation of society by the Enlightenment spirit that prevailed throughout Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bourbons were always aware that <\/span>the only way to economically sustain the entire Hispanic kingdom was to annex all the peninsular territories and thus form a new geopolitical hexagon<\/b>. However, this was not possible because from the end of the 17th century, Portugal was no longer part of the Hispanic Monarchy, although attempts were made to annex it on three occasions during the 19th and 20th centuries. Therefore, efforts could only focus on the territories of the Levant peninsular which, first with the War of Succession and then with the Nueva Planta Decrees, allowed the Bourbons to link productive sectors – master craftsmen and merchants – to the new centralist system. As a result, <\/span>this loyalty to the Bourbons allowed those who supported the new regime to gain access to large public contracts<\/b>, which led to their absolute dependence on the new centralist system, which ended up weaving a web of widespread corruption at all levels of public administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no shortage of examples, such as when at the beginning of the 19th century Queen Maria Cristina – widow of Ferdinand VII – handed over power to the <\/span>Spanish liberals, who at the same time made a pact with the Catalan industrial bourgeoisie to forge a self-interested political and socio-biological alliance<\/b> that would materialise with the institution of a protectionist system. In this way, the Catalan mercantile tradition was squandered and the spirit of 1705 was betrayed, because the Bourbon refusal to free trade the Principality with England and the Netherlands – its main trading partners – initiated the whole process that would converge on 11 September 1714.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nor did the establishment of the \u2018democratic regime of \u201c78\u201d improve matters for the interests of the Levant peninsular. In fact, we Catalans, Valencians and Balearic Islanders suffer <\/span>the consequences on a daily basis when, year after year, we contribute a <\/b>massive amount<\/b><\/a> of our GDP to the State coffers for the sake of a \u2018solidarity-based centrality\u2019<\/b> and, let us remember, with the approval of politicians, industrialists and bankers. And the story continues to the present day, when after a politically and socially intense decade, the State has just proposed to Catalonia – soon it will also propose it to Valencia and the Islands – a singular financing, surely conditioned by a great solidarity.<\/span><\/p>\n

History had already warned Philip II when he visited his father, Emperor Charles of Habsburg, for the last time in the monastery of Yuste, when he advised him that if he wanted to increase the empire, he should locate the capital in Lisbon, because this would mean linking it to the New World; if he wanted to preserve it, he should locate it in Barcelona, in other words, link it to the classical tradition; <\/span>and if he wanted to lose it, he should locate the capital in Madrid<\/b>. And indeed, Madrid was the most poorly communicated capital in Europe until the beginning of the 20th century, when, thanks to the development of airlines and the construction of reservoirs, it managed to revitalise that solitude in the middle of the Castilian plateau.<\/span><\/p>\n

We return to Newton. And how can we move from a centripetal force to a centrifugal force? Well, this will only be possible if there is a tangential acceleration that allows the velocity modulus of the object to vary and, in this way, it will be able to return to its original physical state. So, <\/span>will technological innovation bring about an acceleration of the economic movement that, by taking advantage of \u2018Open Banking\u2019 and \u2018Embedded Finance\u2019, will bring about the tangential force that will make it possible to return to our original stage?<\/b> It is up to us to achieve this!<\/span><\/p>\n

11Onze is the community fintech of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the app El Canut for <\/b>Android<\/b><\/a> or <\/b>iOS<\/b><\/a> and join the revolution!<\/b><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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