Ruling by Fooling

Nationalism always claims certain virtues as the peculiar, exclusive possession of certain nations. If individuals make such claims, they are laughed to scorn. With what logic can nations make such claims? Nationalism claims that the culture belonging to one nation is distinct from that belonging to any other. This was maybe so in the past, but the natural evolution of mankind is making it less so. Increased means of communication — the swift transport, the mass media, the communication and internet revolution has developed an interconnection that there is no essential difference between any one of the countries of the world. Even language is tending to become universal. More people understand each other today than ever before. Governments are coming to resemble each other. Codes of justice and ethics are becoming universal. It is only by the most artificial kind of propaganda that nationalism is kept alive. Nationalism is an unmitigated curse. It leads inevitably to national chauvinism. It leads to a blind patriotism for the particular little bit of dirt on which a particular person has been born. It leads to narrowness and bigotry, to racial jealousy and bitterness, petty pride and prejudice. In the end nationalism is the best of cloaks for the intrigues and machinations of politicians and capitalists.

Socialists are internationalists. Many who accept the pro-nationalist line simply do not know history. The correct approach is to identify the real enemy, the ruling class, and to unite workers in their material interest, not their place of birth or residence. Erecting obstacles in the way of the unity of workers has also always been the tactic of the ruling class. The self-styled “left” in Scotland serve the nationalistic and chauvinist ambitions of the national bourgeoisie. This makes them defenders of the interests of the ruling class. Workers of Scotland and Britain have a different task before them. It is to unite to resist the attacks of the bourgeoisie with greater and greater strength and eventually to oust it from power so to establish a socialist society.

 

Nationalism is based on myths and the Scots version is no exception. The signatories of the Declaration of Arbroath were asserting their claim to rule over their own tenants and serfs, not leading a liberation struggle while the  1707 Union ensured that the Scots élites retained all their traditional privileges, rather than the defeat of a nation. The clan system of the Highlands, a feudalism with large pre-feudal elements, was a huge obstacle to the development of Scots capitalism. To the Lowlander, the Highlander was a cattle-thief, not a fellow countryman.  When the threat from Highlanders receded, Scottish élites invented a national identity from the romantic idealisation of the society which they had so recently helped to destroy, all kilts and tartans. What was promoted was a picturesque Scots identity within and beyond Scotland’s boundaries. Far from being junior partners in the British Empire Scots capitalists were enormously important in the Empire’s military, police and administration.  The left-nationalists see early nineteenth century workers’ struggles as rebellions against English rule, although the workers made no such claims, and the employers were also Scots.

The Socialist Party honours Wat Tyler, John Ball, Jack Straw, and others who led peasant revolts. We stand with the soldiers who took part in the Putney debates during the Civil War. We honour the Levellers and the Diggers. We honour the Chartists, who led the struggle to make the franchise universal. We commemorate the Tolpuddle Martyrs and others early trade unionists who fought for the right of workers to combine in their own interests. These movements we have a right to be proud of, just as much as those in the radical republican movement of the United Scotsmen, the 1820 Insurrection rebels or the participants in the Crofter Wars.  It will not be a mere Scottish or British, but a global workers' revolution. It is this revolution, and only this revolution, that will be able to save the world from the environmental and social decay caused by a system based on production-for-profit, and which will be able to replace it by a system of production based on social usefulness and sharing.