A new Scottish model

The world is changing is changing and Scotland will have to as well. Let’s not be swept around by events, let’s create a strategy.

In these tumultuous times, Scotland needs a new model. I write this confidently because everyone needs a new model. We have lived with one broadly recognisably consistent way of existence since the Second World War and a fairly settled way of existence since the end of the Cold War. And now we don't have a settled way of existence.

Generally what you do when your current model isn't working is that you shop around for others. In fact that is how Common Weal started out – as a project to say 'right, who else in the world does things better than we do and how could we adapt that to Scotland?'. The problem is, look round the world and everyone else is looking back, trying to find a model themselves.

I know this is heretical talk, but what if just for once Scotland wasn't the last kid in the room to understand what is going on, having sat in the corner with an inferiority complex, waiting to see what the 'more important' kids do first and just agreeing with them? What if we started to develop a new model for Scotland, all by ourselves? Perhaps others might start looking to us for a change.

I believe Common Weal has a strong case to be listened to over this because we correctly identified the need to understand what was going on at a time when others, smugly, implied we don't understand how the world really works. Way back in 2019 we argued forcefully that we were moving into an increasingly unpredictable and unstable world and that we need to prepare for it.

We offered two key watchwords – security and resilience. These may not be the most obvious words you'd associate with a left wing think thank, but that's only because people have misused these words so completely. Security just means your people and your territory are safe; resilience just means you aren't overly-reliant on others for that security.

Just as long as you understand that it is difficult to think of a single serious threat to Scotland's security that can be addressed by weapons and that our levels of resilience are alarmingly low as a result of outsourced globalisation, you begin to get the picture. When you throw in the constantly increasing risks that emerge from climate change, we ought to have been taking this more seriously at an earlier stage.

Thankfully, Scotland is well placed to ensure both our security and our resilience, at least comparatively. So let me offer you some simple thematic ways to begin to consider what a 'Scottish model' might look like. These are all Common Weal policies.

Bring a resilience approach to Foundational Economics

Foundational economics is really helpful here because it maps out what is 'that without which we cannot live'. If you're not familiar with it, Foundational Economics argues that not all parts of the economy are equal. Nail bars and American sweetie shops may make money, but they are hardly in the same category as education, roads or policing.

That is what Foundational Economics identifies – the 'different' things. Food, transport, education, health services, policing and justice, communications, waste collection, energy – these are the kinds of things which are simply not option for an advanced society, so Foundational Economics says we can't treat them as optional by walking away and leaving the free market to do it, or not.

That has meant, for example, closer regulation of the food sector than the consumer good sector, and the public provision of schools. Now extend the concept further; if they are foundational, what could disrupt those foundations and can it be done to us from outside Scotland? If so, how are we planning-in resilience? If all our IT runs on software provided by and regulated by a single nation state, can we rely on that?

Foundational Economics was created to emphasise the 'essential public good' nature of some parts (and only some parts) of the wider economy. Great; now that we have identified those, how do we prevent the risk of disruption?

Produce more of what we consume and diversity markets

This is simple; we're about to give a hostile government anything it wants because it produces too much of what we rely on and consumes disproportionately what we produce. It makes us weak, cowering beneath Trump on behalf of Japanese whisky companies and hoping they don't switch off the satellites.

It is foolish to be overly reliant on a single unreliable market. We must hedge our bets. And there is no prospect of us becoming self-sufficient, but we ought to aim to be self-sufficient in enough to ensure we can maintain our quality of life. Unless you want to risk eating barley and only barely, we need to find ways to grow food all year round. That's why I've been so evangelical about indoor growing, unaffected by trade wars or extreme weather. Then at least we can eat – and more importantly, not be blackmailed over food.

Same for construction materials, people skills like IT or engineering, ways to maintain infrastructure and much more.

Build resilient systems

We operate on an 'it'll be OK' basis. That was and is reckless. For example, we think having robust public data networks is a luxury and the current toppling mess of bad systems piled on bad systems will somehow be OK. The capture of public IT systems by shyster consultancies who sell proprietary products to suit their own interests, not ours, is a disgrace. Ironically a bunch of other publicly-minded IT consultants are the most critical of all of this.

“Scotland can’t make the world care about us with guns”

I don't have space to explain all this here, but what we can do for public data is a good model for what we can do generally. Shifting the entire public sector to open source software solutions isn't realistic quickly, but think of it in two parts. One part is the important part – the actual data, the actual information. The other is the interchangeable part, the software used to read and manipulate the data.

It is really, really easy to organise the data itself on simple, open source data spines that are resilient and reliant on no-one's good graces. What software packages then read that data for the user (doctors, teachers, council workers) doesn't greatly matter. Almost all software packages will read standard data formats. If we have the spine of our systems designed sensible and resiliently, we don't need to fear losing the spine.

Think of it that way, right across our systems, from fire and rescue to road networks. What is the thing, the core thing, that keeps it working. How do we secure that and keep it resilient? That gives stability in an unstable world. Think 'Russian space pencils'. Sometimes the solution isn't a new AI software package from Elon Musk, it's a bunch of good-old-fashioned analogue walkie talkies.

Assess threats accurately

This is where we go wrong. We are suddenly facing a whole world of threats we should have prepared for while we were spending all our money on a bunch of unrealistic threats (which by chance made corporations such as weapons manufacturers lots of money). The classic example of that is how much the UK spent on aircraft carriers which no-one can come up with a reason for other than 'looking tough'.

Scotland is not going to be invaded. We should have strong territorial defences just in case, but we're an island and pretty easy to defend with lots of cheap drones and a standing army which would actually spend its time doing other things. Other than potentially contributing to a joint European defence force, that is all the guns and bombs Scotland needs.

But anti-cyber crime experts? Organised crime taskforces? Intelligence-gathering? Rapid extreme weather response teams? Coastguards who prevent smuggling and human trafficking? These we will actually need. As in really need.

Seek regional solutions to peace

'Great nations' worry about their penises, metaphorically-speaking. They think they are great because of the ability to impose violence when in reality they are great because of their history and culture. They are bad at peace.

Small nations have generally been better at peace. Europe still seems to think more guns equals more peace. That's nonsense; less conflict equals more peace. Scotland can take the role of 'talk not bombs', again and again and again. We should make it a national mission (with others like Ireland) to be the voice of sanity and peace in Europe. That is a role that is needed and which we can fulfil.

Pivot to non-alignment

This has all happened because we sold the jerseys and tied ourselves inextricably to a single nation state guarantor of our way of life, a nation state which has been devolving into madness for a long time now. The US sells social media, and data, and aspiration and luxury. That stuff we don't greatly need.

China sells solar panels and wind turbines and electric vehicles and cheap, reliable technology. It has long been in Scotland's geostrategic interests to broaden our horizon, or 'pivot to the BRICS countries' in shorthand. I don't advocate this as a 'replacement' for the US. That's just the same problem all over again. I propose it as a balance. Let's start dealing with nations on a case-by-case basis and stop being quite so pathetically pleased at having 'one big pal'.

Grow non-coercive connectedness

During the Cold War, both sides sought to win the hearts and minds of those not firmly in either camp – aid, infrastructure, cultural links and so on. From the end of the Cold War onwards, the remaining superpower instead began to focus on coercion, relentlessly expanding its military reach and bringing in the era of economic bullying known as 'globalisation'.

Now the US seems to have completely given up on hearts and minds in favour of wallets and guns The UK is following them out the door. It is silly and shortsighted and a great opportunity for the rest of us. The world does not only connect across the circuitry of commerce but also collaboration, diplomacy, culture, mutual development, science and tourism.

Scotland can't make the world care about us with guns. We can make the world care about us if we share our poetry and they share theirs, if we have school children visit and understand other places, if we work together constructively and positively on the world's big problems.

Scotland will never be a military superpower, but we can be a serious diplomatic, cultural and development power. Which is better still.