How to make a Currency: A Practical Guide
Launching a new currency in the modern digital age is complex – it is a process with a lot of moving parts – but it is not impossibly difficult.This paper lays out a three year timetable starting from shortly after a Scottish independence referendum and culminating in the launch of a new currency on Independence […]
Towards an industrial policy for Scotland: A discussion of principles and approaches
This report proposes a mutual, sectoral model of industrial development and rejects both ‘top down planning’ and ‘free market’ approaches.Our approach is based on the recognition that the economy is not a force ‘external’ to society, governed by its own set of abstract rules or laws. The form an economy takes is inevitably the result […]
Banking for the Common Good: Laying the foundations of safe, sustainable, stakeholder banking in Scotland
This paper is a collaboration between Common Weal, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Move your Money and New Economics Foundation. Author: Gemma Bone.The report makes the case for:Not-for-profit “People’s Banks” should be established in Scotland’s regions to offer banking services to local people and business.Local banks would be part of a “People’s Banking Network” to […]
What can the Scottish Parliament do with new social security powers?
Professor Paul Spicker analyses the planned devolution of social security powers to the Scottish Parliament in the Scotland Bill and argues:”The reforms have been represented as giving Scotland “one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world.” That is debatable. In any federal system, powers lie by default with the states, not with central […]
An Equal Start: A plan for equality in early learning and care in Scotland
The Scottish Government has committed to delivering 30 hours free childcare per week (1,140 per year) for all 3-4 year olds and ‘vulnerable’ two year olds by 2020. The commitment is a doubling of the Scottish Government’s current policy of 15 hours a week (600 hours per year) free childcare, with the ambition that Scotland […]
From ‘I’ to ‘We’: Changing the narrative in Scotland’s relationship with consumption
Materialism has become synonymous with debt fuelled, wasteful, unsatisfying consumerism used to build and sustain our identities via what we buy.This materialism and consumerism has been interwoven with the rise of the narrative of ‘I’, where individual freedom takes precedence over and above collective experience and responsibility.
A Living Rent for Scotland’s Private Tenants
This report, co-published by Common Weal and the Living Rent Campaign, outlines five key policy recommendations for creating a living rent in the private rented sector in Scotland:1) That initial rents be set against a points system to reflect the value of the property.2) That rent increases be capped at a rent affordability index to […]
ScotPound: Digital Money for the Common Good
NEF report published in association with Common WealThis report outlines the creation of a new national digital currency, ScotPound, and free-at-point-of-use payment system, ScotPay, for Scotland.
Scottish Sovereignty in the age of Mass Surveillance
This paper looks at the implications of whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s revelations of the global nature of US and UK mass surveillance of innocent citizens and businesses. It looks at the case of spying on the Brazilian national oil company, Petrobas, and the response of the Brazilian government. It makes the case for the adoption by […]
Food In A Common Weal Scotland
A Common Weal food system would put our resources and knowhow to work more effectively to ensure that all of us in Scotland can enjoy a healthy and sustainable diet.As a global food citizen, Scotland would reduce the environmental burden we place on the rest of the world through the way we produce and consume […]
Investment in Scotland: A Common Weal Approach
Future governments of Scotland should reintroduce the principle of investing for societal goals, challenge the failed policies of austerity and wrest monetary policy from the financial sector. These are prerequisites for a socially just and prosperous Scotland.
Housing For A Better Nation
Good housing needs more than good housing policy: housing policy needs to be part of wider social changes towards a more equal, community-centred, environmentally sustainable society, but good housing policy can make an important contribution to those changes. Economic considerations remain key, but we need to transcend the destructive veneration of GDP.This paper outlines a […]