We have a regrettable tendency to see what we want to see and rationalise what we already want to do. Scottish nationalists attribute Scotland’s ills to the constitutional link to England. Both Left and Right see independence as a panacea. Those on the Scottish Left who have added their voices to the campaign for independence have succumbed to ideas incompatible with the socialist transformation of society.
The Left has long subscribed to the principle of “self-determination” that small nations ought by right – assuming the support of its people – be given the right to cede from larger states and claim autonomy over their affairs but over the decades socialists have seen the divisive character of such nationalist campaigns. No serious socialist can be a committed to nationalism.
“Nationalism requires too much belief in what is patently not so." the historian Eric Hobsbawm has said.
Nationalism is the ideology of always putting one's nation first, often at the expense of other nations. It is not necessary to be a wealthy and powerful nation to carry out nationalistic policies and practices. Governments and corporations of every stripe engage in nationalistic practices in the name of patriotism.
The Left who support independence believe that once it has been achieved, the real fight for the future of Scotland will commence. To-day’s Left take Scotland’s radicalism for granted but go back just fifty years and a majority of Scots voted Conservative and sectarian prejudice still divided many working class communities. Go back a further fifty years or so, we find that left-wingers like Keir Hardie had to move to England to get elected.
Pre-union Scotland had its own feudal monarchy and its own pro-capitalist Protestant revolution and after 1707 its capitalist landlords, merchants and mill-owners continued to use the separate Scottish systems of law, religion and education to exploit their own people. The union with England made the Scottish ruling class a junior partner in securing the profits of colonial empire.
And today the Scottish capitalist class continue to parasitically feed off workers blood sweat and tears through the hedge funds and financial institutions of the City of London’s Square Mile and its satellite Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square. Scottish employers as a class draws on the support of the British State and does so jointly with employers in England and Wales. The economic power does not lie in Scotland. It still lies at a UK level, in Europe and around the rest of the world. Its top 20 companies are dominated by energy, particularly oil and gas multinationals and financial services corporations. With the exception of the drinks giant William Grant & Sons which is family owned, and Scottish Water which is state-owned, all the rest are public limited companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.
The most recent figures show that amongst larger enterprises (defined as those employing 250 people or more) 64% of employment and 78% of turnover is in enterprises where ultimate ownership and control is outside Scotland. Amongst larger firms in the manufacturing sector alone the results are even starker with 72% of employment and as much as 87% of turnover in companies owned outside of Scotland. These figures are based on Scottish registered companies only. They do not include big supermarket chains like Tesco and Asda, or military industrial companies like Rolls Royce and BAE Systems which have a huge turnover, and are major employers in Scotland but do not separately register here. The once familiar old South of Scotland Electricity Board (the SSEB) is now owned by the Spanish corporation Iberdrola and the French corporation EDF. A separate Scotland does not weaken finance capital.
Business is global. Capital flows are global. The capitalist’s first loyalty is to acquiring and expanding wealth. By the nature of their business and their lives today capitalists are inevitably pulled into a globalized world. They have much less connection and fewer ties to their national community. And their rewards are in the global world. As we witness in the recent exposures of Amazon and Starbucks and a host of other multi-nationals, Big Business has slipped the leash of national government and are no longer captive of a nation state.
In a world of globalisation, where countries are so interdependent it is near impossible to see how Scotland could be genuinely independent. Profits would most definitely continue to be being exported to London, Paris, Madrid or wherever and commercial decision will be made in these cities. Businessmen “sell out” their nation to other businessmen from abroad simply because they have more in common, in every practical sense, with other members of their class rather than the workers of their particular nationality.
The Socialist Party support neither an independent Scotland nor the status quo. Instead of wanting to separate Scottish workers from the English working class and elsewhere, recognising our shared class interests, we seek to join with working people across the world in creating a socialist alternative. Socialism, like capitalism, should know no boundaries and should look to the day when workers of all countries would become one great organisation. The answer to all the problems facing working men and women is not a flag, or a border or if powers lies in Edinburgh or London; it is the weight of the labour and trade union movement, united behind a commitment to make the politics of class, not nationality, its driving force. The priority for socialists should be common class interests not an exclusive nationalism. Independence will be the same poison but drunk from a different bottle.
The Socialist Party can certainly ascribe to James Connolly’s words when he said “For our demands most moderate are. We only want the earth.”
The Left has long subscribed to the principle of “self-determination” that small nations ought by right – assuming the support of its people – be given the right to cede from larger states and claim autonomy over their affairs but over the decades socialists have seen the divisive character of such nationalist campaigns. No serious socialist can be a committed to nationalism.
“Nationalism requires too much belief in what is patently not so." the historian Eric Hobsbawm has said.
Nationalism is the ideology of always putting one's nation first, often at the expense of other nations. It is not necessary to be a wealthy and powerful nation to carry out nationalistic policies and practices. Governments and corporations of every stripe engage in nationalistic practices in the name of patriotism.
The Left who support independence believe that once it has been achieved, the real fight for the future of Scotland will commence. To-day’s Left take Scotland’s radicalism for granted but go back just fifty years and a majority of Scots voted Conservative and sectarian prejudice still divided many working class communities. Go back a further fifty years or so, we find that left-wingers like Keir Hardie had to move to England to get elected.
Pre-union Scotland had its own feudal monarchy and its own pro-capitalist Protestant revolution and after 1707 its capitalist landlords, merchants and mill-owners continued to use the separate Scottish systems of law, religion and education to exploit their own people. The union with England made the Scottish ruling class a junior partner in securing the profits of colonial empire.
And today the Scottish capitalist class continue to parasitically feed off workers blood sweat and tears through the hedge funds and financial institutions of the City of London’s Square Mile and its satellite Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square. Scottish employers as a class draws on the support of the British State and does so jointly with employers in England and Wales. The economic power does not lie in Scotland. It still lies at a UK level, in Europe and around the rest of the world. Its top 20 companies are dominated by energy, particularly oil and gas multinationals and financial services corporations. With the exception of the drinks giant William Grant & Sons which is family owned, and Scottish Water which is state-owned, all the rest are public limited companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.
The most recent figures show that amongst larger enterprises (defined as those employing 250 people or more) 64% of employment and 78% of turnover is in enterprises where ultimate ownership and control is outside Scotland. Amongst larger firms in the manufacturing sector alone the results are even starker with 72% of employment and as much as 87% of turnover in companies owned outside of Scotland. These figures are based on Scottish registered companies only. They do not include big supermarket chains like Tesco and Asda, or military industrial companies like Rolls Royce and BAE Systems which have a huge turnover, and are major employers in Scotland but do not separately register here. The once familiar old South of Scotland Electricity Board (the SSEB) is now owned by the Spanish corporation Iberdrola and the French corporation EDF. A separate Scotland does not weaken finance capital.
Business is global. Capital flows are global. The capitalist’s first loyalty is to acquiring and expanding wealth. By the nature of their business and their lives today capitalists are inevitably pulled into a globalized world. They have much less connection and fewer ties to their national community. And their rewards are in the global world. As we witness in the recent exposures of Amazon and Starbucks and a host of other multi-nationals, Big Business has slipped the leash of national government and are no longer captive of a nation state.
In a world of globalisation, where countries are so interdependent it is near impossible to see how Scotland could be genuinely independent. Profits would most definitely continue to be being exported to London, Paris, Madrid or wherever and commercial decision will be made in these cities. Businessmen “sell out” their nation to other businessmen from abroad simply because they have more in common, in every practical sense, with other members of their class rather than the workers of their particular nationality.
The Socialist Party support neither an independent Scotland nor the status quo. Instead of wanting to separate Scottish workers from the English working class and elsewhere, recognising our shared class interests, we seek to join with working people across the world in creating a socialist alternative. Socialism, like capitalism, should know no boundaries and should look to the day when workers of all countries would become one great organisation. The answer to all the problems facing working men and women is not a flag, or a border or if powers lies in Edinburgh or London; it is the weight of the labour and trade union movement, united behind a commitment to make the politics of class, not nationality, its driving force. The priority for socialists should be common class interests not an exclusive nationalism. Independence will be the same poison but drunk from a different bottle.
The Socialist Party can certainly ascribe to James Connolly’s words when he said “For our demands most moderate are. We only want the earth.”
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