If Scotland Goes

Independence can revive a proud capitalist tradition

By Michael Fry

In the western world there cannot be another nation so reluctant as Scotland to acknowledge that it earns its living from the profitable investment of its money; nor one in which the public discourse is so much about caring and sharing in defiance of the temptations of filthy lucre. These ills, say the Scots, are for the English.

Yet this is the land of Adam Smith, the father of modern economics and the capitalist system. Throughout the 19th century, Scottish coalmasters and shipbuilders yielded to none in their exploitation of the factors of production – though when they died they might give away all they had. Andrew Carnegie was the prime example, even if he went to America ...