«
Madrid nao have nothing!
», A friend from Lisbon used to say to me as we watched the setting sun shimmer in the waters of the Tagus estuary, which the locals call
mar da palha
, sea of straw, because of the golden reflections of the sun on the water.
At least, he told me condescendingly, Barcelona also has a sea.
I had to admit that in Madrid we had nothing like that beautiful panorama and that, in terms of visible water, we Madrilenians were content with the Manzanares, "apprentice river stream" according to Quevedo.
And yet, in Madrid this element has never been in short supply, as its own name indicates, which, according to Oliver Asín, derives from Arabicized Latin, and means "spring":
Fons Matrix
(Main Source), which later became Mayrit and finally the capital's place name.
In Madrid the sun does not brown the water, for the simple reason that it is underground.
There is a series of underground streams that flow towards the Manzanares from the thaws of the Sierra de Guadarrama and that used to emerge near what is now the Plaza de Cibeles, so that it was necessary to cross a stream by boat: hence the name of Calle del Barquillo.
Already in the Muslim Mayrit, tunnels or "trips" were built that led the water to cisterns and wells, which in turn fed the many sources of drinking water that were in Madrid: a water filtered in sand and clay, very fine, much more than that of the maritime Lisbon and Barcelona.
Could this be the reason why Philip II decided in 1561 to convert a village with a fortress of Muslim origin into the capital of the empire where the sun never set?
Without a doubt, the quality and quantity of the water were taken into account.
In addition, the Alcazar of Madrid was a royal residence since its conquest by Alfonso VI, and highly appreciated as a base for hunts and excursions.
In Madrid the Emperor Carlos lodged Francisco I of France when he took him prisoner after the battle of Pavia.
The Castilian kings did not have a fixed capital until Felipe II decided to locate all his bureaucratic apparatus in a single city.
This was initially Toledo, but the lack of available space in such a crowded and old city prompted him to move the Court and Government to Madrid, which was larger and closer to El Escorial.
Since then, except for a few years when Valladolid was, Madrid has been the capital of Spain.
It would be absurd to deny that the Town and Court have benefited from its status as capital
, which has made the nation's taxes flow to it, has turned it into a center of consumption with high purchasing power, in a large European city and in the largest conurbation in Spain, with the advantages of scale that this brings.
Something similar happened with most of the European capitals, some of which, like London or Paris, became large financial markets.
But the capital does not explain everything.
Since the end of the War of Succession (1714) until recently, Spanish economic policy has benefited Catalonia and the Basque Country more than Madrid, because a policy of protection has been given to the industry that has favored them without interruption. regions: this has been the case from Felipe V to Franco, who have a very bad cartel in Catalonia, which, as far as Franco is concerned, is justified politically, but not economically.
It would take a long discussion, but I am going to limit myself to two eloquent facts: 1) during the 19th century, the protection of the textile industry, mainly Catalan, cost Spanish consumers about 1% of national income;
2) the economic policy of the Franco regime from 1957 was in the hands of Catalans: López Rodó, Sardá, Valls Taberner, Estapé and a long etcetera.
I bring this up because in an interview in these pages, Professor Andreu Mas-Colell, described as the "most brilliant economic mind in Spain", made, along with other very sensible, some quite strange statements about economics and politics.
Mas-Colell, who held very important positions in the governments of Artur Mas, utters, in a sibylline and nuanced tone, several statements that on the lips of less intellectually brilliant politicians would turn into crude insults, such as
Espanya ens roba
,
La culpa es de Madrit
, or
Freedom for political prisoners
.
Mas-Colell maintains that the capital of Madrid "provides an unfair form of tax competition."
In my opinion, this phrase tries to hide that separatist politics and economics have dismantled the Catalan business landscape.
Following the unilateral declaration of independence (DUI) of October 2017, companies have fled Catalonia like the plague (or covid), and so have foreign investors, who, overwhelmingly, prefer to invest in the rest from Spain and especially in Madrid.
The separatists claim that this is due to mysterious tax incentives that began to work only from the DUI.
It is surprising that Professor Mas-Colell subscribes such an implausible thesis.
It is more grounded in stating that the "capital factor" gives Madrid a disposition of "state assets [] from which its inhabitants benefit asymmetrically";
we have already seen it above.
But he forgets to say that industrial policy has benefited Catalonia for centuries, as we also saw, so that from Felipe V to Franco (two long centuries)
Catalonia has been the most prosperous region in Spain at the expense of much of the rest of the Spanish
.
If this prosperity has declined absolutely and relatively since the Transition, it has been due to two factors: regional convergence and separatist politics.
The first is due to a common trend, reinforced by redistributive actions.
The second, with its misuse of resources, widespread corruption, abusive tax pressure, disregard for the legal framework and public order, and political instability, cannot but depress economic development, as it has been.
Today young people and companies, human, physical and financial capital flow towards Madrid like the water of the Sierra.
Another issue that Professor Mas-Colell mentions is that of regional decentralization.
He would want the Spanish model to imitate German and not French.
Actually, it already does, but he would like Catalonia to be treated like Bavaria in Germany and for government institutions to be more distributed, implying that Catalonia should have a good deal.
"Catalonia has not been given the option of being Bavaria," he said.
Again, he forgot several things.
In the first place, that the autonomy of the
Laender
has been substantially curtailed in a series of recent reforms (2006-2017), something that, if it were to be done in Spain, would produce violent insurrections in Catalonia, and possibly in other regions.
Secondly, that, as X. Pericay recently pointed out, German is spoken in Bavaria as in the rest of Germany, while in Catalonia those who speak Spanish are persecuted and the entire regional administration expresses there exclusively in Catalan, in violation daily of the Constitution.
Third, that Catalan public schools are systematically dedicated to denigrating the nation whose agencies the teacher wants to transfer to Catalonia, where the authorities almost daily refuse to belong to the country whose official dependencies, according to Mas-Colell, wish to host.
And fourthly, that the Spanish State has been negotiating with the Catalan authorities for more than 40 years and making concessions in matters of education, information, police, prisons, financing, status, autonomy, etc., without receiving more than insults in return, threats, declarations of independence and promises to "do it again."
It would be interesting to hear from Mas-Colell what compensation the Catalan authorities offer in exchange for the new round of concessions that he is demanding.
My political disagreements with Professor Mas-Colell do not detract from the respect and admiration I have for him in the field of pure economics and in that of university and scientific politics.
It would be interesting for you to develop the ideas and proposals outlined in the interview at length so that the scientific and political community could study and debate them calmly.
Perhaps, for once, the discussion would shed light.
Gabriel Tortella
, economist and historian, is the author, among other books, of
Catalonia in Spain.
History and myth
(with JL García Ruiz, CE Núñez and G. Quiroga), Gadir, 2017.
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