The sun is setting on the imperial state

Home > Opinion > Letters

print dictionary print

The sun is setting on the imperial state

The “no” outcome of the referendum asking Scotland’s voters the question, “Should Scotland be an independent country?” is a Pyrrhic victory for the United Kingdom.

“Yes” netting 44.7% of the tally undermines a 300-year consensus and the devolution of substantial political power to Scotland is already conceded. Such a near-tie is far more problematic for an existing political system struggling to maintain its legitimacy than for a new one trying to find its feet. And the concerns raised in advance of the referendum persist.

With much of the impetus of the “yes” side stemming from a desire to get nuclear weapons out of Scotland, even with the practicalities of operating a domestic conventional military unresolved, the textbook objection of, “But what about defense?” was largely obviated. Naysayers even seriously presented the prospect of Scotland becoming the new Switzerland as if that were a bad thing.

Far more of the commentary was devoted to economic uncertainty in the case of independence. Critics such as Paul Krugman raised the valid point that since Scotland’s economy currently relies on the global financial system, with all its instability, political independence would have reduced its leeway to absorb the damage from wider economic crises to which it would have still been vulnerable.

The Scottish economy, with its diminishing oil and gas revenue, has been hit particularly hard by deindustrialization. But as post-industrial technology rapidly becomes the norm, an economic base is increasingly viable. Key services can be unbundled from geography; the referendum received much of its impetus from the effects of the most limited competition of Scotland being able to pick and choose between the UK and the EU. And full competition of currencies, for one, will go far beyond the choice between the pound and the euro. Decentralization to a point matching the level of the traditional Scottish clan system will no longer be a romanticized memory, but everyday reality.

The sun is setting on the imperial state.

BY Joel Schlosberg a New Yorker
















Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)