The language of the tribe

After Branko Milanovic linked to my blog post about his blog post criticizing Alesina and Spolaore, there was a comment on Twitter presumably about my post, saying "The Catalan bourgeoisie in my opinion is unionist and the independence movement is not lead by the bourgeoisie but by cross class alliance." As a matter of fact, I didn't say whether the bourgeoisie was pro-independence or not, I only made a claim about a group of neo-liberal pro-secession economists who I believe are very proud of being bourgeois. There is little doubt that the pro-secession movement is a cross class alliance. That is the whole point of nationalist movements especially in rich regions, to try to distract the working and popular classes from the class struggle. I'm not a marxist, but I still find some marxist concepts useful simplifications (like economic models). But the current drive, which started in 2012 with the Catalan center-right president Artur Mas changing from pro-autonomy to pro-independence, has been led by an important part of the Catalan bourgeoisie (namely, the party of Mr. Mas). In many ways, they have created a monster that now they don't know how to tame. According to Catalan government surveys, those supporting independence come disproportionately from mid and upper income groups. The reason is simple: the best predictor of pro-independence feelings is linguistic identity, and most people having Spanish as first language, although a majority of the population, are among the poorest. But there is complexity and exceptions. For example, I'm among an exceptional 10-20% of people who have Catalan as first language but do not support independence. What I mostly object about that comment is the use of the word "unionist." I don't know about the bourgeoisie, but I will never accept that those like me opposing independence are called "unionist." This was a term that was absent in Catalonia before 2012. It has been coined by the secessionist groups to insult those that oppose them to compare them with the very unpopular Northern Irish fundamentalists of Reverend Paisley. I am certainly not a unionist, I'm a federalist, which in many ways is the opposite of being a unionist. They claim that they want to expand their social base (understandably, since they don't have a majority), but I don't know how they are going to do that if they keep insulting the other (very diverse and heterogeneous) at least half of the voting population.