It seems only appropriate, in view of my comments this morning on the Scottish Sustainable Growth Commission report, to mention that Common Weal has offered a very different view of what an independent Scotland might look like.
For all those who want a real vision read Robin McAlpine's ‘How to Start a New Country'. It's reasoned, reasonable and a calm, rational and clearly deliverable case for the transition Scotland will need to make if it is to be an independent country.
And I could also suggest my own White Paper on tax in an independent Scotland which sets that issue into a macroeconomic framework that is almost entirely different from that the Growth Commission has to offer, and which would deliver true economic independence.
I make the point deliberately. If Scotland is to be free of its oppressed past it cannot ask those who subscribe to the outmoded views of now dead economists created to serve the interests of an economic elite largely located in the south-east of England to write the script for the liberation.
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[…] Richard Murphy has ruined my Friday morning and the Growth Commission is the reason, as Richard rightly says, they may also have just ensured independence remains a dream. […]
Grumpy Scottish man says:
“….just ensured independence remains a dream. […]”
We’d better hope so too, if this is the template we’re going to adopt. 🙁
Take heart, unlike last time round a whole swathe of ordinary folks are reading up on this and other relevant subjects. I guess thousands of copies of ‘How to start a new country’ are being read and discussed. I’m still chewing on it. When the starting gun is fired for next indyref a more knowledgeable electorate will be holding the leaders to answer questions that were fluffed round rather last time. The economy was a biggie that was part of our ‘yes’ argument failing. Must admit my personal Twitter ‘bubble’ hasn’t been considering keeping the pound sterling – but what do we know?
The choice to go with the pound is astonishing
It was the Big weakness last time and it is being replicated
“The choice to go with the pound is astonishing”
I’m not astonished.
I’m deeply dismayed however.
Has Ruth Davidson called it out? If so it’s a bit ironic.
She seems to have done so
And yes – that is ironic
But worth recalling
Hazel says:
“Take heart, unlike last time round a whole swathe of ordinary folks are reading up on this and other relevant subjects.”
There’s a very large swathe that isn’t doing anything of the sort though, Hazel. (And that’s before you even consider the staunch ‘NOs’ and the damage they can do, because they aren’t even considering the rational arguments)
Jeez ! We’ve got a lot of work to do.
…but on the positive side, because there always is one; we’ve got the Brexit debacle to demonstrate the dangers of getting it totally wrong.
I have not had the advantage of an advance copy; but is this not simply another example of the continuing influence of orthodox neo-liberal economists on policy?
Yes
I also think I inadvertently broke the embargo: that was an error but an innocent one
In what way is Scotland oppressed. I live in Scotland and I am in no way oppressed, no one is any more ‘opressed’ than those that live in any other part of the World. Stop propagating divisive nonsense.
I also know you are not Fred Bloggs
So with respect, I do not believe what you say
Frankly I am extremely tired of commenters, swathed in anonymity, lecturing and hectoring people who at least are prepared to stand behind the opinions they hold. I consider that anonymity is to be excused in the case of genuine ‘whistleblowers’; but when people hide behind a pseudonym with no other apparent justification than the protection of their anonymity so they can mount such activities ‘free gratis’ to attack someone, or their views, without being prepared to declare who they really are, or justify the attack; then it is wretched, pure and simple: in which case, how can they possibly consider that such activity is to be respected, still less admired? An explanation would be appreciated. There is too much of this snivelling activity.
NB. If such pseudonyms are used not by ‘whistleblowers’ but for some (unknown) good reason, then readers are entitled to expect some reasonable (even non-specific) explanation, before the gratuitous attack is delivered. I consider this a defining charactersitic of civilised debate; and no excuses.
Some do use pseudonyms here: the regulars who do so have all told me why
In so far as ‘Fred Bloggs’ observation goes I would say he’s probably quite right to feel he’s not being oppressed. Being comfortably-off has that effect on people.
In this case I think I was exercised by the fact that a commenter protests that he isn’t “oppressed”.
For the avoidance of doubt I am Scottish, I am not ‘oppressed’, and indeed I did no agree with your use of the term (it isn’t ‘oppression’ that holds back the Scottish people, but and enduring, culturally embedded ‘small-c’ conservatism and caution, laced with a large soupçon of gullibility): but for anyone to feel the need to hide behind a pseudonym before being prepared to attack your view on “oppression”, is frankly, risible!
I think the economic environment is oppressive
But I am happy to be disagreed with
“I think the economic environment is oppressive”
Not just in Scotland. The entire neoliberal, globalisation project is oppressive, and austerity is oppressive and ….and…and…..
There have been huge financial/economic gains from globalisation, but they have been hoarded rather than shared.
I know very little about economics, but on the face of it this looks to me like the Growth Commission working with the Scot Gov to try and allay some of the fears that stopped many people voting yes last time; mainly the confusion and concern over the currency. Our own currency will undoubtably need implementing after we have independence, but for those who were panicking about the currency issue last time, starting out with the status quo is likely to make the whole idea less scary in the short term. And for those who support indy but dislike or distrust the SNP, leaving creating our own currency as an option for whichever party is voted into power once we are independent allows those people to vote for indy too. I think Scot Gov are simply trying to take some of the fear out of the initial process for the majority of people, whilst leaving Scotland’s options open. It may not be ideal economically in the short term, but we have to win the referendum first, and that means appealing to the maximum number of voters, even if it means delaying controversial plans for a short while.
I wish I could believe that
But I don’t: it was the uncertainty that killed things last time and it will do the same now
The problem is – it is a bad idea. I am sorry to repeat the hoary old maxim of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the House of Rothschild; often misquoted but I hope a good paraphrase at least, here: “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws”. I quote it because it rather trenchantly makes the point.
The fact that this currency policy has more or less survived 2014 is an indictment not only of so much orthodox economics, but the decline in Scotland’s banking wisdom since the destructive effects of Big Bang in 1986 (from which the calamities to our great banking institutions directly flowed).
I think John Warren is spot on in his arguments, both in his analyses of the recommendations of the Commission per se and in the use of anonymity in these posts in the contexts he highlights.
‘Whit aboot ma penshun?’ and ‘Whit aboot ma munny?’ were key destructive elements in the 2014 failure. As far as I can see, they have not yet been obviated.
Oppression: having another nation make your decisions for you, including overruling your parliament, and deciding whether or not you’ll stay in the EU. Scots are not equal in the UK.
Compare Ireland and Scotland to see the difference it makes. Check income levels, inequality, social mobility, education – – every human development metric you can. If you find any where Scotland is ahead let us know.
The union hasn’t been good for NI
https://www.irishtimes.com/northern-ireland-and-the-tripadvisor-index-of-economic-vibrancy-1.3311077
The per capita income gap is now greater than between East and West Germany before reunification and growing (Brexit will widen it further). NI remains a welfare state.
Who seriously believes Scotland cannot govern itself and would not do a better job than Westminster? It could have been as rich as Norway, but it’s never too late. A minimum, surely, should be equal status in a federal UK.
I firmly believe Scotland could be better off as an independent country
so your pitch to the Scottish people would be:
“we’ll create a new currency and then adopt an entirely untested economic policy that involves printing lots of it”
I think you may find that a bit of a hard sell
Why?
It’s been done throughout history by new states
What’s your best example to back up your claim ( that a newly independent country has succeeded by printing lots of its own money straightaway )
There have been several in Europe in the last twenty or so years
Oonagh McTavish says:
“we’ll create a new currency and then adopt an entirely untested economic policy that involves printing lots of it”
It’s not ‘entirely untested’, Oonagh. You’ve just lived through ten years of it it being field tested, on a global scale. It is the economic policy which bailed the global finance system, in the wake of the 2008 crash. By the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank. The Japanese Central Bank has been doing something very similar for even longer. They have collectively ‘printed’ eye-watering quantities of currency. As a result we still have a global financial system and we can still use ATMs to draw cash, and use our bank cards and credit cards. It is no exaggeration to say all those systems were on the point of total collapse.
We also know that whereabouts in the economy money is injected affects the outcome of the policy. Inject in to the top of the economy and it stays there creating asset price bubbles.
We also know that if money is injected into the productive economy it can repair a continental scale economy because that, essentially was how Roosevelt’s New Deal functioned to bring the Great Depression to a close.
That we have austerity which is causing untold suffering to the the poorer and more vulnerable members of our society and destroying the public services we ALL rely on is a purely political policy designed (in my opinion , because it’s hard to conclude otherwise) to do exactly what it is doing.
You are quite wrong to suggest we are proposing go into completely uncharted economic territory.
On the contrary; we are in uncharted territory NOW. We have already experienced the 2008 crash caused by unfettered ‘free markets’ and we are going that way again because the necessary checks and balances have not been created to constrain the excesses of the financial players and the big banks are now even bigger, and more interconnected and more precarious.
The new Italian government could be instrumental in breaking-up the Eurozone. Brexit will cause havoc. Goodness only knows what Donald Trump et al are doing, but it’s all driven by economic motives and we have not been here before.
Any one of these geopolitical scale developments threatens the UK economy. Because ‘The City’ financiers and banks are into it all up to the oxsters the UK is highly vulnerable.
An Independent Scotland with its own currency, under its own control could not conceivably be more precarious than where we are now tied in to the biggest experimental (entirely untested) economic system the world has ever known.
That should not be a hard sell.
Brilliant
Thank you
Why does it appear that this report is writ in stone and is now SNP policy? It’s not. Like “How to start a new country” these are surely just suggestions?
An independent Scotland, (just like a post-Brexit England) will likely require a transition period during which the currency question would be addressed. I would imagine getting out from sterling would have a pretty high priority but until Scotland has the ability to create its own currency continuing to use sterling would be the easiest solution.
The currency question, and any other question relating to independence, is totally irrelevant until such time as Scotland has the freedom to make its own decision. I am certain that mistakes are likely, but they will be mistakes made in Scotland, by Scots, and not elsewhere for the benefit of others.
Two SNP ministers were on this Commission
That makes it harder to dismiss as ‘just advice’
Unlike Common Weal, the Growth commision Report is available for download on the SNP website.
I accept that it will now be reviewed in detail, and locally by the Party (for those of us not members that is in any case irrelevant); nevertheless, p.47 (open-ended and opaque) remains a bad idea, whatever your politics.
Willie John says:
“Why does it appear that this report is writ in stone and is now SNP policy? It’s not. Like “How to start a new country” these are surely just suggestions?
An independent Scotland, (just like a post-Brexit England) will likely require a transition period ”
That’s absolutely right , Willie John,.
I think most people don’t grasp how much there is to do to make that transition. Brexit certainly serves as a good model for how NOT to go about it. !
The danger I sense with the currency issue not being central and built in from the start is that without control of the currency much of what needs to be done in the early days will be ‘unaffordable’ and could easily strangle the project at birth.
A new nation will be well-nigh impossible to build under the strictures of austerity. Scotland would suffer, to take the household budget analogy, in ‘the benefit trap’. Beholden to Westminster and loan sharks.
The necessary expense of new administrative systems to run an independent nation is part of the essential economic activity which makes it viable, as long as the economic benefits are been siphoned elsewhere (to London and off shore) we will have an economy which is hobbled.
I’m hearing the argument that ten years of the status quo will silence fears of voters who were frightened last time about their pensions savings and mortgages etc., but I think it might be necessary to ‘sell’ the positive rather than succumb to a defensive narrative.
If the majority is frightened of change, we’ll get ‘NO’ again.
Agreed
Richard,
I note your website opinion on this matter was noted by a presenter in an interview on BBC Radio Scotland’s lunchtime news programme today. I thought that worth recording as it is rare for social media to be referred to in such a context.
Thanks for letting me know
I have managed a couple of interviews this morning
SNP conference is 8 – 9 June.
I would lay odds on an emergency resolution on having a Scottish pound in the shortest practicable time.
That would be good
All I can say is I hope the Growth Commission’s recommendations are a PR stunt.
To try and get the vote because it certainly is not based on economics.
I thought your reponse on common space Richard was AWESOME !
Do you know which economists they actually used ?
The info is in their report
I don’t get it-why does Scotland want to become Greece/Spain/Italy etc.?
Richard, have you been in touch with Angus McNeil over this-he’s MMT conversant and must be apoplectic.
I have been in touch with Angus
Why did you cite these countries and not the small Fennoscandian,Baltic and Benelux nations who are our nearest Continental neighbours?
For folk on here, SNP MP Roger Mullin, the MP who was uncovering money-laundering through the hundreds of SLPs and lost his very safe seat which is still very questionable since Tories wanted to stop Roger snooping, he said on Twitter yesterday that he will be talking about his opinions on it.
Worthwhile watching out for his views so follow him on Twitter if you aren’t already.
I think we all should make sure we hear other trusted opinions as I was quite shocked at how you Richard have really went for the jugular on Growth Commission but then you are a great supporter of Common Weal. I can imagine your words will be emblazoned on every British Nationalist front page who will happily destroy all of Growth Commission, not just the section you pretty much demolished and deter folk from considering it completely. Sad that it has been blown out of the water by you so brutally, Scottish Gov has always been willing to listen to opinions and criticisms and look at it from a different angle but your words, I’m not so sure folk will even bother considering it.
It’s a policy recommendation
It’s badly wrong
I have a duty to tip-toe around that knowing it will cause real harm?
That’s not my style
Lisa Robertson says:
” I can imagine your words will be emblazoned on every British Nationalist front page …”
Fat chance of that, Lisa. But if that’s what it takes to open up the debate It’s better than nothing.
It does actually really matter, I think. If the economy of an independent Scotland is unfit for purpose the project is dead before it starts. I’d even consider voting no on a prospectus like this if this was the best presented, because I believe it could be disastrous.
You can’t slip fundamental change past an electorate. Arguments have to be won or the bickering that follows is a killer. Watch Brexit and learn. Think LVT and the Garden Tax. Think restructuring elderly care and the ‘Dementia Tax – that didn’t even survive into the second week of Theresa May’s campaign.
This stuff has to be out there NOW, not when it’s too late to counter the MSM assassination misinformation campaigns.
No way can Scotland slip unobtrusively into independence. Sooner or later the case has to be made and won. Or it won’t happen.
Yes, I’ll listen to Roger Mullin. I’ve already listened to Roger and Michelle’s road show. They are good and they present a scary picture of Brexit for Scotland. The growth Commission economic agenda does nothing to still those fears.
I think that’s right
I am sure some will be annoyed with me
I really don’t give a damn
I care
And doing so means gettting things right, not doing party politics
The SNP and Scottish independence are not the same thing
Andy Crow: good point about LVT and the killer phrases used to attack it, which is why we in the Scottish Land Revenue Group use the term Annual Ground Rent. The discussion on this ‘aint’ done yet’ http://www.slrg.scot . The neo-libs often mention Adam Smith, but totally ignore his core argument on this.
Ron Greer says:
“The neo-libs often mention Adam Smith, but totally ignore his core argument on this.”
….and much else that doesn’t suit their predatory agenda.
We’re all allowed a ‘bit’ of latitude in our interpretation of ‘scripture’ but there’s latitude and there’s heresy.
Lisa,
I’m glad Richard has been none too subtle in his criticism of the report. As someone who was trying to persuade people about the necessity of a sovereign currency before 2014 I’m absolutely bloody seething!
When you have someone with the economic pedigree of Kevin Hague agreeing with the report then you know how wrong they’ve got it.
As recently as 2015 Nicola Sturgeon talked of balancing the economy, not the books. What on Earth has happened since then?
The neoliberal language and completely erroneous approach to national finances has utterly dumbfounded me. Now is not the time for me to make snap decisions but right now I feel likely chucking the membership card away.
Stick with it
Make change
Anyone who questions Scottish oppression just needs to read the terms of the EU Withdrawal Bill for Scottish consent.
I struggle to understand what would be so bad by a revolutionary new Scottish currency called ‘The Scottish Pound’.
A unique currency minted in Scotland that sounds reassuringly familiar to all the old people.
Maybe that’s too simplistic but giving up control of an independent nation’s currency seems to entirely defeat the point of shedding the yoke of compassionless neoliberal dogma we witness in Westminster.
Exactly
Zachariah says:
“I struggle to understand what would be so bad by a revolutionary new Scottish currency ….
Maybe that’s too simplistic but giving up control of an independent nation’s currency seems to entirely defeat the point of shedding the yoke of compassionless neoliberal dogma we witness in Westminster.”
Well I think that’s dead right, Zachariah.
It’s the basic principles and objectives that matter. There are ‘clever-buggers’ a-plenty who can make the details work as long as the principles are right.
And if the underpinning philosophy is wrong why bother? We can have more of the same, if we can bear it, without the upheaval. ‘Compassionless, neoliberal dogma nicely sums up what I believe we are trying to rid ourselves of.
I’m prepared to not succeed, but I’m not prepared to not try.
Scotland has a wealth of resources and will quite possibly become energy independent but that is for nought if we can’t mobilise these resources. The tool for that is money and it has to be controlled from within.