Scotland can become a successful independent nation. But that plan needs to come from the 2020s. And it needs to come from a broad cross section of civil society, not just business groups. Far from being an asset to the independence cause, the Growth Commission is its biggest liability. It’s time, as we say, ‘tae think again’.
The narrow focus on fiscal discipline is not the only part of the Growth Commission’s report that feels like a discredited International Monetary Fund (IMF) document from the 1990s. Throughout the report there is a slavish adherence to a kind of economic orthodoxy that even institutions like the OECD and IMF have long since moved on from.
Rather than setting out a bold vision for Scotland’s economy by drawing on the latest economic thinking, the Commission attempts to identify “general themes that are observed consistently across high performing small advanced economies”. These themes are then used to identify an uninspiring list of key features that should underpin Scotland’s “next generation growth model”, such as being “innovation-focused”, “competitive”, “export-orientated” and having “flexible labour markets”.
By failing to interrogate how different economic models might contribute to different social, economic and environmental outcomes, the Commission’s recommended “growth model” ends up being little more than a list of lowest common denominators. How Scotland’s economy will be transformed after independence, and in whose interests, is left unanswered. Similarly, while challenges such as climate change and inequality are highlighted as problems that need to be addressed, there is scant detail on how the levers of independence should be deployed to tackle them.
Had the Commission bothered to tap into the wealth of talent and creative thinking across Scottish civil society, things might have been different. Rather than declaring that “an independent Scotland should be able to reap the long term benefits of oil revenues for many years to come”, they might have heard how a just transition away from fossil fuels is a better way to secure jobs and sustainable prosperity. Rather than ignoring the importance of care work to the functioning of modern economies, they might have heard how placing free, universal care at the heart of Scotland’s economic model would be both popular and good for the economy. Rather than fetishising GDP growth, they might have heard how prioritising alternative indicators of prosperity would be far more appropriate in the context of the challenges of the 21st century.