A New Economics for a New Scotland
This is a debate you rarely hear in the independence movement and it’s an essential one. All else is fluff and denial.
Tim Jenkins of the New Economics Foundation on:
“An economic model for the 21st century – can Scotland thrive with a new economic model that delivers well being and social justice within environmental limits?”
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I do not accept that a “passing score” in some contrived economic test is a prerequisite for a nation asserting its rightful constitutional status.
If we are not going to see this as an opportunity to change the society we live in completely, to make it better than the current one, I don’t see the point of independence.
The point of independence has to be to change the status quo. We ought to have a vision of what our future might be, and the status quo is not, obviously, an option. The ‘Better Together’ folk might argue otherwise. I am bereft of an arguement ‘pro’ the status quo. As, I imagine most of us in the independence camp are.
Anyway, I will be voting yes.
It seems to me that we need to agree that the way we do things now is a complete, utter, disaster. I think most of us who are in the ‘Yes’ sector see this as an opportunity to be different.
It is to the point, is it not, that we reject the current economic model, that change is absolutely neccessary. We need to be arguing that that change, through independence, is an opportunity to be better. What we need to think about is how we can do that.
If we are not engaged in the concept of being ‘better’ then we are we are not addressing the issue of independence directly. It is no good, imho, to be the ‘same’ as the rUK. We have to be different.
We absolutely have to have a different vision of the future. Otherwise we should continue to subsidise London and the South East.
The Jimmy Reid foundation appear to have a lot of ideas along a Scandanavian model, which appeals to me.
I am struggling to understand Peter A Bell’s comment, above.
“It is to the point, is it not, that we reject the current economic model, that change is absolutely neccessary.”
1) Issue our own currency. 97% of money in circulation is created as debt. Private companies are in control of the UK’s money supply at present and that’s worked really well hasn’t it?
2) Levy a Land Value Tax. If possible, at a level to obviate the need for any other kind of tax: personal, business, sales etc..
3) Realise the inroads that automation has made into modern economies. Think about a Citizens’ Income.
4) Fight it out over the various types of business organisation: Coops, the status quo.
I can’t see any point to Independence if it’s not to change things.
if someone is talking using a powerpoint, then you should film the powerpoint and have the narrator appear in the corner. like the deaf translator appears