Why Does Scotland Want Independence? It’s Culture vs. Economics

Neil Irwin

If you had told someone in 2012 that in just two years the eurozone would remain bonded together but the United Kingdom might not, they would have thought you insane. But here we are.

It’s been a good three centuries, but now Scotland may want out of the United Kingdom.

The stakes are enormous for Scotland, and quite high for the rest of Britain. But the debate over Scottish independence also sheds important light on how debates over the nature of the state that are as old as Hobbes and Locke apply in a modern world of instant communication and cryptocurrency.

Scottish independence supporters applauded as Ruth Cheadle of California supported their side while waiting to marry in Edinburgh on Tuesday.The Push to Keep Scotland in the Fold SEPT. 9, 2014

A recent poll said Scots supported independence from Britain by 51 to 49. The referendum will be Sept. 18.Efficiency of Markets: Betting Markets Not Budging Over Poll on Scottish IndependenceSEPT. 8, 2014

The latest polling on the referendum, to be held Sept. 18, points to a narrow edge for Scots who wish to pull out of the state that they have been part of since 1707 and go it as a nation of their own. Previous polls, by contrast, had given the edge to those who wish for Scotland to remain part of Britain. Both betting markets and forecasting groups are now putting the odds that Scotland will pull away and form its own state at something like 30 percent.

What’s all the more remarkable about this possible secession is that major, specific grievances over public policy between Scotland and the rest of Britain are hard to identify. This isn’t like the Southern chunk of the United States seceding in 1860 because it was committed to slavery and the North was against it.

Sure, the pro-independence leaders make some promises about improving social welfare benefits like improved public child care for young children. But that doesn’t square particularly well with the fact that Scotland has been a net drain on the rest of British taxpayers for the last generation; it has received greater benefits than it has paid in taxes. And whatever long-term arrangements are reached over thorny issues like oil rights, divvying up public debt and currency arrangements between the Independent Scotland and the “rump U.K.,” as British commentators have been calling the possible post-secession nation, there is sure to be a heavy transition cost and damage to commerce in the near term.

Many Scots feel as if they have more to gain from governing alongside people who look like them and talk like them than they have to lose from no longer being part of a bigger, more powerful nation. A video posted by the pro-independence campaign captures a bit of this. Amid soft-focus images of beautiful Scottish landscapes and charming-looking Scots going about their day, a woman holding flowers says: “Independence. It’s what we all want in our lives. So why shouldn’t our country be independent too?”

One could point out that Britain as it exists today is the very model of a liberal democracy, that Scots are amply represented in Parliament, and that they have a great deal of control over day-to-day governance within their borders. The government has offered to expand those rights of local control over taxes and public administration if Scotland sticks with Britain. But it may not be enough. That’s where these bigger questions of what makes a modern state come into play. Continue reading the main story If you start with Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy enunciated in “Leviathan” that governments exist to bring order to the chaotic state of nature that would prevail in their absence — “the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” — then the size of the state is ultimately a practical question. By definition, to have a government at all is to relinquish some of the freedom we might have as individuals to some larger purpose, in hopes that with rule of law we will have a peaceful, more prosperous society. Give up some autonomy, but gain wealth and longevity. Not a bad trade. But it’s a lot easier to give up that autonomy when you are giving it to people who look like you and talk like you. And yet, it’s hard for a democratic institution to channel the collective wishes of hundreds of millions of people into one coherent set of policies without making any subset of those people so angry they want to scrap the whole thing. The idea of government started small, with essentially extended families, then villages ruled by a local strongman. But over time, the overwhelming trajectory of history is toward larger and larger government entities.

In the 18th century, it was the creation of what is now the United Kingdom out of England, Scotland and Wales (and, presently, Northern Ireland). In the 19th century, it was the expansion of the United States to span a continent and the centralization of smaller states into what are now the nations of Germany and Italy. In the 20th century, it was the creation of the European Union, in which people from Finland to Portugal share a common market and common currency.

There are examples that cut the other way, like the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, but those are examples of countries held together by authoritarian force proving unable to hold together when that force weakens. Among democracies, the march has been toward greater scale and reach, at the cost of less distinct national identity. There have been flare-ups of resentment in these large democracies, from the Québécois of Canada to anti-E.U. parties in France to modern-day secessionists in the United States. But none have come as close to getting their wish as the Scots will in just over a week.

The economic and geopolitical advantages of being a larger country offer some advantages that a small country cannot match. It’s no accident that the United States is the richest country in the world, creator of some of the most meaningful technological advances of the last century; it is not for nothing that Europeans who speak different languages and have different cultures have tried to emulate it with the E.U.

In big countries, businesses can get all the benefits of scale, selling within giant markets that all use the same currency with the same legal system. In geopolitics, large countries can strike hard bargains to get access to one another’s markets, while trouncing smaller rivals at the negotiating table.

And big countries tend to be more resilient to shocks. Imagine how much economic trouble the Republic of Louisiana would have been in after Hurricane Katrina or the Independent Nation of New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

If Scotland chooses to go independent, it will shed the advantages that come from being part of a relatively large global power (Britain’s population: about 64 million. Scotland’s population: about 5 million) for the chance to be governed by people with whom they share a deeper cultural affinity.

Paradoxically, pro-independence Scots have argued that they will recapture some of the advantages of size by joining the European Union. It seems slightly bonkers for Scots to get so frustrated about ceding power to bureaucrats in London and turn immediately to bureaucrats in Brussels, but there it is.

They may find challenges. Scots may want to be able to sell Lagavulin 16 Scotch in Germany without tariffs, or take a vacation to Italy without having to go through passport control. But as a small country they will have less negotiating leverage in sorting out the terms of E.U. membership than Britain had.

The Scottish referendum isn’t just about whether a few million Scots will govern themselves. It is a fight over the world of multicultural modernity that makes today’s global economy possible, but also leaves many people with a deep hunger for the sense of national identity it obliterates.