Scotland is irretrievably trapped. Democracy ensures that the party handing out the freebies, the SNP, is continually voted in by the people who receive and benefit from the freebies. The opposition to the SNP is hopelessly split, however, even if it weren't, the only party which could win a majority, Labour, would also depend for support in maintaining the freebies. The Scots are socialist. They despise wealth; you are not meant to get rich in Scotland: they do not like it. However, if you have wealth they will gleefully take it from you. Scotland only succeeded economically in the past because, bluntly, only the people in charge of the economy - essentially the business elite - had the vote. Any graph tracking the increase of the franchise and the decrease in Scotland's prosperity would show a stark divergence, as would one for the UK, sad to say, especially after the second war and the shock defeat of Churchill by Labour. The English taxpayer is being fleeced by the Scots and the SNP. If Scotland were forced to fund itself it would collapse completely. Independence would provoke a flight of capital and an exponentially greater exodus of the people who currently pay the exorbitant level of taxation. The proud history related in this article was only possible, at the most fundamental level, I believe, because the franchise was heavily restricted. If the English were allowed a vote remove Scotland from the Union it would be an outcome which the Scots would have richly deserved. It gives me no joy to say so, but that is the awful truth. Could it happen? A truly major upheaval in the state of Britain might just be the catalyst. Until then the current desire to preserve the Union at all costs - literal costs for the English taxpayer - will continue to fund Scotland's inexorable decline towards startling poverty and deserved irrelevance.
Soc de la Opinio,que si Escocia fos Independent Politicament i Economicament del Reina de Anglaterra,les coses de fet porin canviar Radicalment, nomes per aquest fet seria molt important.
Your article’s most revealing sentence is its last: “It’s not horrifying, but it is sad.”
That is also where I believe your argument is weakest.
You arrive in Scotland as a visitor, admire
our scenery and intellectual heritage, observe some genuine economic shortcomings, and conclude that the country has betrayed its inheritance of free-market thought.
But you make a large leap from economic statistics and museum labels to a diagnosis of national disappointment.
From the standpoint of someone who lives in Scotland, is now retired, is not sad, and even possesses a James Tassie medallion of Adam Smith as a graduate of the University of Glasgow, I would offer a different verdict.
Scotland has problems, but it is not a failed experiment in social democracy, and its achievements cannot be understood by treating Adam Smith as the patron saint of laissez-faire capitalism.
Your article invokes Scotland’s intellectual inheritance while giving remarkably little attention to the complexity of that inheritance, the economic history of the country, or the actual experience of living here.
There is a serious argument to be had about Scottish productivity, public services, taxation, energy and political competence.
For me you weaken it by turning Scotland into an allegory about the supposed consequences of abandoning free markets.
Scotland does not need to choose between complacency and despair, or between an uncritical celebration of the state and an uncritical celebration of the market.
Its Enlightenment inheritance offers something better: reasoned argument, intellectual independence and the willingness to judge institutions by how well they serve human beings.
That is a more demanding standard, I would suggest, than yours. It is also one more faithful to Adam Smith.
Your comment about sympathies betrays an uncompromising tone I have to suffer when reading Scotland's media, from both sides of arguments about our governments.
In an independent Scotland (which I won't see in my lifetime) parties like SNP
should surely fall away and be replaced by others, hopefully better at reflecting the various shades of opinion and regional differences we enjoy here.
At least you didn't suggest we're too wee, too poor, too stupid.
Colin McLean over at Barnton Capital
draws an interesting comparison today between Scotland and Denmark, using the year 2000 onwards as his starting point.
Devolved governments or parliaments (you don't need to look only at Holyrood) are limited by the tax raising and borrowing powers so far granted to them.
My view is that some of Holyrood's arguably false priorities at times are a consequence of them not being given enough to work with in the first place.
But I'm not arguing for a larger public sector or for even more MSPs (127 seems too many to me, just as 650 seems too many at Westminster), just a more focused and strategic form of government.
Again, Scandinavian countries offer examples of different ratios between centralised and community-based governance, although I am aware that Denmark has around 175 members in Folketinget.
Good riposte, though my sympathies remain with the author. Really Scotland is a massive disappointment. I honestly supported the idea of a Scottish Parliament if only because I felt sympathy for those who hold Westminster government (imho rightly) in contempt, and to de-fang the more strident and tiresome nationalists (anything to be rid of them frankly). But lo! Holyrood is even worse than the British parliament. Who could have conceived of such utter, parochial - indeed at times actual racist, nonsense? More than sad, it's a tragedy, and a damned shame.
Painfully accurate analysis. Labour/Lib Dem and SNP administration's both culpable of gross misuse of considerable devolved powers. Of course, the bovine acceptance of the situation by much of the Scottish population has contributed to the tragic economic underperformance of the Scottish economy and the consequent dire social circumstances of large sections of the population.
Scotland is irretrievably trapped. Democracy ensures that the party handing out the freebies, the SNP, is continually voted in by the people who receive and benefit from the freebies. The opposition to the SNP is hopelessly split, however, even if it weren't, the only party which could win a majority, Labour, would also depend for support in maintaining the freebies. The Scots are socialist. They despise wealth; you are not meant to get rich in Scotland: they do not like it. However, if you have wealth they will gleefully take it from you. Scotland only succeeded economically in the past because, bluntly, only the people in charge of the economy - essentially the business elite - had the vote. Any graph tracking the increase of the franchise and the decrease in Scotland's prosperity would show a stark divergence, as would one for the UK, sad to say, especially after the second war and the shock defeat of Churchill by Labour. The English taxpayer is being fleeced by the Scots and the SNP. If Scotland were forced to fund itself it would collapse completely. Independence would provoke a flight of capital and an exponentially greater exodus of the people who currently pay the exorbitant level of taxation. The proud history related in this article was only possible, at the most fundamental level, I believe, because the franchise was heavily restricted. If the English were allowed a vote remove Scotland from the Union it would be an outcome which the Scots would have richly deserved. It gives me no joy to say so, but that is the awful truth. Could it happen? A truly major upheaval in the state of Britain might just be the catalyst. Until then the current desire to preserve the Union at all costs - literal costs for the English taxpayer - will continue to fund Scotland's inexorable decline towards startling poverty and deserved irrelevance.
Soc de la Opinio,que si Escocia fos Independent Politicament i Economicament del Reina de Anglaterra,les coses de fet porin canviar Radicalment, nomes per aquest fet seria molt important.
Your article’s most revealing sentence is its last: “It’s not horrifying, but it is sad.”
That is also where I believe your argument is weakest.
You arrive in Scotland as a visitor, admire
our scenery and intellectual heritage, observe some genuine economic shortcomings, and conclude that the country has betrayed its inheritance of free-market thought.
But you make a large leap from economic statistics and museum labels to a diagnosis of national disappointment.
From the standpoint of someone who lives in Scotland, is now retired, is not sad, and even possesses a James Tassie medallion of Adam Smith as a graduate of the University of Glasgow, I would offer a different verdict.
Scotland has problems, but it is not a failed experiment in social democracy, and its achievements cannot be understood by treating Adam Smith as the patron saint of laissez-faire capitalism.
Your article invokes Scotland’s intellectual inheritance while giving remarkably little attention to the complexity of that inheritance, the economic history of the country, or the actual experience of living here.
There is a serious argument to be had about Scottish productivity, public services, taxation, energy and political competence.
For me you weaken it by turning Scotland into an allegory about the supposed consequences of abandoning free markets.
Scotland does not need to choose between complacency and despair, or between an uncritical celebration of the state and an uncritical celebration of the market.
Its Enlightenment inheritance offers something better: reasoned argument, intellectual independence and the willingness to judge institutions by how well they serve human beings.
That is a more demanding standard, I would suggest, than yours. It is also one more faithful to Adam Smith.
Your comment about sympathies betrays an uncompromising tone I have to suffer when reading Scotland's media, from both sides of arguments about our governments.
In an independent Scotland (which I won't see in my lifetime) parties like SNP
should surely fall away and be replaced by others, hopefully better at reflecting the various shades of opinion and regional differences we enjoy here.
At least you didn't suggest we're too wee, too poor, too stupid.
Colin McLean over at Barnton Capital
draws an interesting comparison today between Scotland and Denmark, using the year 2000 onwards as his starting point.
Devolved governments or parliaments (you don't need to look only at Holyrood) are limited by the tax raising and borrowing powers so far granted to them.
My view is that some of Holyrood's arguably false priorities at times are a consequence of them not being given enough to work with in the first place.
But I'm not arguing for a larger public sector or for even more MSPs (127 seems too many to me, just as 650 seems too many at Westminster), just a more focused and strategic form of government.
Again, Scandinavian countries offer examples of different ratios between centralised and community-based governance, although I am aware that Denmark has around 175 members in Folketinget.
Good riposte, though my sympathies remain with the author. Really Scotland is a massive disappointment. I honestly supported the idea of a Scottish Parliament if only because I felt sympathy for those who hold Westminster government (imho rightly) in contempt, and to de-fang the more strident and tiresome nationalists (anything to be rid of them frankly). But lo! Holyrood is even worse than the British parliament. Who could have conceived of such utter, parochial - indeed at times actual racist, nonsense? More than sad, it's a tragedy, and a damned shame.
Painfully accurate analysis. Labour/Lib Dem and SNP administration's both culpable of gross misuse of considerable devolved powers. Of course, the bovine acceptance of the situation by much of the Scottish population has contributed to the tragic economic underperformance of the Scottish economy and the consequent dire social circumstances of large sections of the population.