Nationalism is the tool of capitalism.

What part can the Scottish workers, devoid of capital, take in any industrial revival except the toiling part? So long as private property is the order of the day it matters little to the property-less Scottish worker who rules Scotland. National boundaries may be altered—may even disappear—but such re-arrangements of things geographical can in no way abolish, or even lessen, the poverty of the many. 

The working class have no country—they have the choice of enduring the miseries of capitalism within the confines of national frontiers or enjoying freedom in a socialist planet.  Only when the over 90 percent of the world’s people, who make a meaningful contribution to life on earth, realize that their interests need a new outlet, can politics become real and meaningful.

Independence will not benefit the working class of Scotland. It will not free them from wage slavery. It will not free them from exploitation and inequality. The Scottish economy is not run on behalf of the people who live in Scotland, but on behalf of the owners of capital. For all the state intervention, it is still subject to the anarchy of production and the vagaries of the market. In the good times Scotland’s wealth grows based on the work of its citizens, most of which is stolen from them. When the market turns sour, they are shown the door, or robbed some more to balance the books. The mass of the people suffer because they own little or no property in the means of life. They are propertyless. Only when Scottish workers unite together to make the land and the other means of life the common property of all, together with the workers of other lands, will they be able to solve their problems.


Scotland is enmeshed in a worldwide capitalist system, and only by joining a general struggle to emancipate the working class of the whole world, and turn the planet into the common property of humanity will people in Scotland liberate themselves. The Scottish Nationalist Party claims to stand in the interest of the workers in Scotland. It is not concerned with the fact that because of the international nature of capitalism, workers are exploited everywhere and therefore the attack against exploitation must be on a broad front recognising no national barriers. The S.N.P. naturally cannot possibly possess this world outlook being a parochial organisation not recognising exploitation as being synonymous with capitalism. Its members base their policy on the importance of the national tate, demanding sovereignty for Scotland arguing that with its achievement the workers' troubles will end. The nationalists base their appeal on economic policy and we realise that this party of "patriots" is just another party of capitalism and has failed to produce anything new apart from the better administration of capitalism. The first reaction of a socialist born and bred in Scotland and knowing something about the past and present of the country, is that the question of independence is irrelevant. The question that the Socialist Party puts to the nationalists is—if Scotland succeeds in obtaining independence what will be the political outlook of the Scottish government? Will industry be carried on for profit? Will monetary considerations rule the field of planning and production? The answer is clear—all the machinery of capitalism will be in operation; nothing will have changed basically. The Scottish "patriots" have no compunction in pawning the freedom of the new national state to outside capitalist interests “Foreign" capitalists are to be allowed to exploit the Scot workers first, and then are to be taxed. The Scottish wage slave will have the satisfaction of knowing that the government has rented workers' labour power to outside interests in order to receive the wherewithal to keep them alive.

The future Scots Government need not worry about finance; it will be sufficient to advertise that the Scottish workers are up for sale; that they are available to any capitalist concern that cares to come and exploit them—as they are at the present time.
Is there a case for Scottish nationalism? From their own capitalist point of view there might be—it might be more profitable to operate capitalism from  Edinburgh than from London. From the point of view of the Scottish workers, the position would remain broadly the same – he or she would remain the vehicle creating surplus value. They could go to work singing “Flower of Scotland” and “ Scotland the Brave” knowing they have achieved “independence”. On the other hand they could get down to the fundamentals of socialism and throw their exploiters out and raise their voices in a mighty chorus which would reverberate through the glens and beyond. “Workers of all lands, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to gain.

This is the real message of freedom.