In light of the upcoming Scottish independence referendum, some quotes by Mises are appropriate. Too bad the Scots’ idea of independence is Salmond and the EU, not Wallace and Bruce.
No people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want. (Nation, State, and Economy, p. 34) It makes no difference where the frontiers of a country are drawn. Nobody has a special material interest in enlarging the territory of the state in which he lives; nobody suffers loss if a part of this area is separated from the state. It is also immaterial whether all parts of the states territory are in direct geographical connection, or whether they are separated by a piece of land belonging to another state. It is of no economic importance whether the country has a frontage on the ocean or not. In such a world the people of every village or district could decide by plebiscite to which state they wanted to belong. (Omnipotent Government, p. 92). The right of self-determination in regard to the question of membership in a state thus means: whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or to attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with. This is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and civil and international wars. (Liberalism, p. 109).
More great quotes, plus an explanation by Hans Hoppe of “democracy” as understood by Mises, here.
