3 ms·

But New York (city), Los Angeles, or London are nothing like states/nations at a political or social level. The difference between a Nation and a city state are

by afiori 6y ago

But New York (city), Los Angeles, or London are nothing like states/nations at a political or social level. The difference between a Nation and a city state are size and centralization, and in the case at hand Florence as a city state was not too much smaller than its neighbours in Italy. In this context I don't really see a meaningful distinction between city state and nations.

082349872349872 6y ago
The difference I see between a city state and a nation is that in the former people belong to it by being part of the same strongly economically connected component[1], while in the latter people belong to it by being part of some granfalloon[2]. Some nations share an ethnicity, some a language, some a religion. As my country shares none of those, we've fallen back on shared historical myths and shared cultural traits, such as celebration of diversity ("il faut de tout pour faire un monde"). Consider cities in Alsace: they retained their economic identity despite intermittently swapping nations for the last couple of centuries. Returning to Machiavelli, Firenze has been under roman, Odoacer's, Ostrogothic, byzantine, lombard, carolingian, monarchic, feudal, local republican, local aristocratic, monarchic, french revolutionary, monarchic, Savoyard, and monarchic regimes before being incorporated into republican italy. I'm having trouble thinking of a nation which has stayed constant while having its cities change instead. If Detroit had an army[3] and in principle set its own foreign policy, it would be considered a country just like Singapore. Consider the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Monaco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Monaco , all few hundred of them, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Monaco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Monaco . [1] from TFA: "... he means loyalty to Florence. He was a civil servant, serving regardless of regime; the Medici were hardly worse than many others. ... What mattered were family, friends, particularly circles of friends, lovers, the polis." [2] consider before the nation was a thing, when larger-than-city political entities were simple: all the land that currently belonged to the same monarch. [3] I'm not very familiar with the Detroit CSA, but it seems that of the local militia, at least four army companies are based in Detroit proper, so just the city proper, without land units from its periphery or the air wing at Selfridge, could probably field a larger military than Monaco.
- afiori 6y ago
  This is an interesting point of view, to me it seems that we are using significantly different approaches. If I understand what you mean I disagree with this application of granfalloon. In most modern nations the bond between the people is that of shared trust, there is nothing that links me to someone living in a far away part of my country except a shared implicit assumption that we are probably slightly more predisposed to care about our country than the average random human. A bunch of people loosely connected by this is in my opinion not a granfalloon, as mutual trust is the stuff economies are made of. In this concept then there would be a spectrum of shared trust and cities states are mostly on the "more" side and nations more on the "less" side. I don't have a good name for the country where peripheric cities have little to no connection to their king except sometime paying taxes. I can form arguments for both calling such a city a state and for not calling such a city a state.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    Something that occurred to me last night: "politics" comes from the greek polis (city). I agree on the spectrum[1] of shared trust. As for the state/non-state status of loosely connected cities, consider the case of my own: in the thirteenth century it got a charter of freedom from the bishop who previously administered it as property of the diocese, and in the fourteenth century its self-administration was formalised to the point of reporting directly[2] to the Holy Roman Emperor. As modern wags have said the HRE was none of the three, I believe that means that a free city was much more on the state[3] end of the spectrum. For an example of how recent nationalism is, Triumph of the Will has a scene[4] where a Nazi repeatedly calls out "where are you from, comrade?" and is answered by another Nazi proudly saying "I'm from X" (where X ranges over locations around the country), which I take to imply that in the 1930s, part of what Hitler had been selling was the notion of a Deutschland that was superior to the sum of its regional[5] affiliations. [1] Pedantically, my usage of granfalloon is consistent with Vonnegut's, as he explicitly uses "Hoosiers" (a demonym for the state of Indiana) as an example of a granfalloon, so if regional identities already count then national ones certainly do. (End of Pedantry) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city [3] During its quarrels in this period with neighbouring Ducs and Freiherren, my city deployed its own military, both building and sacking castles, in pursuit of its own foreign policy. [4] anticipating the Starship Troopers movie's "I'm doing my part" commercials. [5] I don't know where you're from, but although in our day I think the idea of a german nation (especially post-reunification) is very strong, regional dialects remain more actively differentiated than in, say, france.

by afiori 6y ago

082349872349872 6y ago

The difference I see between a city state and a nation is that in the former people belong to it by being part of the same strongly economically connected component[1], while in the latter people belong to it by being part of some granfalloon[2]. Some nations share an ethnicity, some a language, some a religion. As my country shares none of those, we've fallen back on shared historical myths and shared cultural traits, such as celebration of diversity ("il faut de tout pour faire un monde"). Consider cities in Alsace: they retained their economic identity despite intermittently swapping nations for the last couple of centuries. Returning to Machiavelli, Firenze has been under roman, Odoacer's, Ostrogothic, byzantine, lombard, carolingian, monarchic, feudal, local republican, local aristocratic, monarchic, french revolutionary, monarchic, Savoyard, and monarchic regimes before being incorporated into republican italy. I'm having trouble thinking of a nation which has stayed constant while having its cities change instead. If Detroit had an army[3] and in principle set its own foreign policy, it would be considered a country just like Singapore. Consider the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Monaco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Monaco , all few hundred of them, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Monaco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Monaco . [1] from TFA: "... he means loyalty to Florence. He was a civil servant, serving regardless of regime; the Medici were hardly worse than many others. ... What mattered were family, friends, particularly circles of friends, lovers, the polis." [2] consider before the nation was a thing, when larger-than-city political entities were simple: all the land that currently belonged to the same monarch. [3] I'm not very familiar with the Detroit CSA, but it seems that of the local militia, at least four army companies are based in Detroit proper, so just the city proper, without land units from its periphery or the air wing at Selfridge, could probably field a larger military than Monaco.

afiori 6y ago
This is an interesting point of view, to me it seems that we are using significantly different approaches. If I understand what you mean I disagree with this application of granfalloon. In most modern nations the bond between the people is that of shared trust, there is nothing that links me to someone living in a far away part of my country except a shared implicit assumption that we are probably slightly more predisposed to care about our country than the average random human. A bunch of people loosely connected by this is in my opinion not a granfalloon, as mutual trust is the stuff economies are made of. In this concept then there would be a spectrum of shared trust and cities states are mostly on the "more" side and nations more on the "less" side. I don't have a good name for the country where peripheric cities have little to no connection to their king except sometime paying taxes. I can form arguments for both calling such a city a state and for not calling such a city a state.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Something that occurred to me last night: "politics" comes from the greek polis (city). I agree on the spectrum[1] of shared trust. As for the state/non-state status of loosely connected cities, consider the case of my own: in the thirteenth century it got a charter of freedom from the bishop who previously administered it as property of the diocese, and in the fourteenth century its self-administration was formalised to the point of reporting directly[2] to the Holy Roman Emperor. As modern wags have said the HRE was none of the three, I believe that means that a free city was much more on the state[3] end of the spectrum. For an example of how recent nationalism is, Triumph of the Will has a scene[4] where a Nazi repeatedly calls out "where are you from, comrade?" and is answered by another Nazi proudly saying "I'm from X" (where X ranges over locations around the country), which I take to imply that in the 1930s, part of what Hitler had been selling was the notion of a Deutschland that was superior to the sum of its regional[5] affiliations. [1] Pedantically, my usage of granfalloon is consistent with Vonnegut's, as he explicitly uses "Hoosiers" (a demonym for the state of Indiana) as an example of a granfalloon, so if regional identities already count then national ones certainly do. (End of Pedantry) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_imperial_city [3] During its quarrels in this period with neighbouring Ducs and Freiherren, my city deployed its own military, both building and sacking castles, in pursuit of its own foreign policy. [4] anticipating the Starship Troopers movie's "I'm doing my part" commercials. [5] I don't know where you're from, but although in our day I think the idea of a german nation (especially post-reunification) is very strong, regional dialects remain more actively differentiated than in, say, france.