Very interesting!
Generally, in the country in the Europe I've lived in, the people who want to secede are those who don't want to see their taxes go to the country's lazy and scammy region (almost all countries have one).
Generally, in the country in the Europe I've lived in, the people who want to secede are those who don't want to see their taxes go to the country's lazy and scammy region (almost all countries have one).
A lot of that money goes to roads and infrastructure, so it's a little more dramatic than it sounds, but importation of goods would take a hit if those roads degraded, let alone if someone put Czech hedgehogs and foxholes at the state line because your stupid ass didn't look at the logistics of secession.
If you think Brexit was stupid, imagine Idaho deciding it didn't want food from out of state anymore.
An explanation I've heard for this is that the people upset with overpaying taxes aren't the people getting welfare benefits, but they see those people and think that the benefits are not deserved.
And medicare/medicaid/social security total to ~half of all Federal spending in the US, so that's not nothing.
How is this any different than when some rich techie on HN says "I know it's not good for me personally but I want higher taxes because that's the right thing to do"?
For all its touted net-contribution to the federal budget California would not survive on its own, as it depends on electricity from other states and water from the Colorado River (a shared resource between several states). To be sure, California puts these shared resources to extremely productive use and pays back the value to its neighbors, but this kind of interdependence probably would not exist if California went rebel.
If a civil war or rebellion did break out I don't think it'd happen along state lines. The kind of power the states now wield actually depends on the existence of the union, so I don't see them wanting to destroy that relationship.
but they want to secede from existing states, not from the union
Now, of course, if you were at war, such dependency would hurt, for sure. But on the long term, country borders don't mean that much to capitalism.
(I have no data, but as suspect it's actually only a small minority of local politicians clinging to keeping a large part of a the small part of the pie.)
I suppose the metro government has something to keep in here too (national waters in Mediterranean see, maybe ? Links to the drug cartels ? No idea.)
But I suspect the French government that will announce true indépendance for Corsica would be met by forks and pitches _from_ the Islanders.)