Transcend national boundaries

Scottish nationalists claim that English domination is the cause of the social ills, such as bad housing, old age poverty, unemployment and rural depopulation from which the people of Scotland suffer. What is the attitude of the Socialist Party of Great Britain to Scottish nationalism? Do we support the aim of Scottish independence? The socialist and the nationalist see society from different points of view. For the socialist present-day society is divided into two classes: a capitalist class who own the means of production, and a working class who, having no property, are forced to work for the capitalists. The interests of these two classes are opposed and between them there is a class struggle. This transcends national boundaries.

For the socialist the property-less working class have no country. The nationalist, on the other hand, sees the inhabitants of one particular area as a unit having a common interest. He or she ignores the class division of society and the class struggle. For a nationalist the nation is all-important. A nationalist encourages the worker to believe he or she has a country. Thus Socialism and nationalism are opposed. They are irreconcilable. Nationalism is in fact one of the means which capitalism uses to blind the workers to class society. It is a delusion which socialists seek to dispel. For this reason the Socialist Party is opposed to Scottish nationalism and does not support the demand for Scottish independence.

The cause of unemployment and other social ills is in capitalism and its production for profit. When there is no profit to make from production, then production stops and unemployment spreads. Unemployment is inevitable under capitalism.

The SNP sees the cause of Scottish unemployment in a mythical English domination. Here again the nationalist is mistaken. He or she sees poverty not as a class problem but as a national problem: a problem to be solved not by class emancipation but by national emancipation. Socialists are committed to exposing this way of looking at social problems. We deny that English domination is the cause of poverty in Wales and consequently hold that national independence is not the solution.

The SNP promises that if it gains national sovereignty it will introduce various social reforms designed to improve the lot of the people of Scotland. We say that such reforms will fail. For it is the social system, and not the political regime, which will determine how people will live in an independent Scotland. It is obvious that the SNP, despite its leftist talk intends that capitalism in one form or another should continue after independence. This means that poverty also will continue. National independence will merely mean that the capitalists of Scotland will pay their taxes to a government in Edinburgh instead of to a government in London—a change of no interest to the workers of Scotland.

What then is the solution? Since these social problems arise from capitalism nothing short of the complete overthrow of this system will be sufficient. The Socialist Party therefore urges the workers of Scotland to unite with workers elsewhere to set up a world Socialist system where the peoples of the world will co-operate to produce for their needs on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life. This will be a society without frontiers, without nations and without war. This is the real alternative to capitalism and nationalism.

Adapted from here