“Nee” tegen Schotse onafhankelijkheid uit solidariteit met alle Britse arbeiders
A bus driver in Glasgow has more in common with a bus driver in Newcastle, Liverpool, or Cardiff than he does with a wealthy fellow Scot. With this in mind, I have increasingly found some of the arguments being made in support of independence by progressives and socialists within the Yes campaign disappointing. The central of those – namely that voting “Yes” will rid Scotland of the Tories – is not only weak, it is cowardly. Firstly, you may get rid of the Tories but that doesn’t mean you will get rid of Tory ideas, a few of which are front and center in the SNP’s recently produced independence manifesto (or white paper), titled “Scotland’s Future”. The Scottish Nationalist Party’s positions on corporation tax, the monarchy, and NATO membership would sit more than comfortably in the pages of a Tory manifesto. More importantly, the idea that abandoning millions of people who’ve stood with us – and us with them – in trade union struggles, political campaigns, progressive movements, etc, for generations – the idea that this can be considered progress is anathema to me. The analogy of the Titanic applies, wherein rather than woman and children, it is Scots to the lifeboats and to hell with everybody else. Nationalism, unless rooted in national oppression, is a regressive ideology. It obscures the real dividing line in society – namely class – offering instead an abstracted analysis of the world through a national prism that takes zero account of social and economic factors, thus offering nothing but more of the same under a different flag. It is no wonder that Albert Einstein described nationalism as an “infantile disease”.
John Wight in Scottish independence issue reminiscent of solidarity (RT)
As the Icelandic example has shown, small nation states favour low differences between social strata. The reason: small societies are more difficult to stratify because of the relative big size of their social network in relation to the general populace.
It is also the reason why a big moloch like the EU or the US favours huge class differences: most social contacts there are between same-class people.
Scottish independance will therefore decrease inequality in Scotland; it will too provide a shining example for the English that less inequality works well.
For this reason I strongly disagree with this article.