Adding my uninformed voice to many highly informed voices regarding whether people ought to have supported or opposed Scotland’s independence would help no one. I just don’t know enough about the country and situation. The vote is tallied, in any case.
What I want to address instead, is why serious leftists often appear on both sides of issues: for or against independence, for or against the big climate event in NYC occurring this weekend, and so on.
Left advocates argued Scottish independence could help suffering citizens in Scotland now. They added that it would raise current popular involvement and the dignity of Scotland’s people. They also believed it could arouse interest in larger gains that could subsequently be won. Risks aside, they felt independence deserved support.
Left opponents argued Scottish independence would likely go nowhere good and might go somewhere bad. Due to possible dangers, they urged getting past excitement and rhetoric and even past long shot possibilities, to oppose it.
A face off between serious leftist advocates and opponents of some vote, action, policy, etc., occurs often, and typically both sides have a point. There are always good prospects (unless we are discussing something really stupid). And there are always bad prospects as well (unless we are talking about something really trivial).
The Scottish independence campaign displayed the kind of arguments the above type of face-off typically involves.
Advocates said the independence struggle was galvanizing the population. They added that since the Scottish population’s inclinations are way to the left of the broad UK population’s, Scottish independence could yield a push not only away from UK austerity, but toward new positive Scottish gains. Such gains could spur other initiatives, too. One could imagine an independent Scotland developing left political movements and structures that lined up with the left in Greece, Spain, and Germany to dramatically influence major trends throughout Europe. Less likely, one could imagine that serious Scottish leaders who really do want to help the poor and weak win popular support would of course encounter corporate resistance. Pushed by the public, they might then choose to resist pressure. In that scenario, one could even imagine the Scottish government moving in a Venezuelan direction. On still another front, Scottish independence could help legitimate the efforts of others in subordinate positions who desire independence – like the Palestinians, Basques, or Kurds, or for that matter, the people of Puerto Rico. Since the possibilities weren’t fanciful, though admittedly they were far from certain, advocates felt, how could we possibly not try?
Opponents replied – anyone can spin out desirable scenarios, but returning our attention to planet earth, what about undesirable scenarios? How about an Independent Scotland becoming more reactionary due to pressures to compete with England by Scotland lowering its taxes so that corporations don’t leave for England’s already lower taxes, even while England and its corporate elites and especially oil companies apply diverse other kinds of pressure as well? What about the process of Scotland achieving independence not abetting other secessionist efforts that have merit, but instead providing justification for imperial campaigns to carve up dissident countries and even intervene in them – for example, by organizing, promoting, and financing secessionist efforts by wealthy sectors (in the oil regions in Venezuela, for example)? If England abided a local vote, Venezuela should do so too, elites might argue, and if it doesn’t, we have to intervene. And, in any case, urged opponents, what would be internationalist about leaving the UK and its much larger population enduring austerity, to set up a new oil state?
Resolving the debate between leftists on both sides of this or any such divide depends on many details, as we can tell from the contrasting positions above, but that Is my point. The broad issue I am addressing here is not the particular resolution in this case, nor the vote itself, but the type of issues involved in almost all such cases. Typically, in such disputes either side could be right. And, as a result, neither side should view the other as idiotic or reactionary.
For example, with a similar structure of concerns about quite different issues, its left opponents dismiss the climate rallies coming up in NYC on grounds they are vague, tame, close to liberal capitalism, etc. The left opponents argue the demonstrations will channel dissent into ineffective stances and lead to resignation when they achieve nothing much. In contrast left advocates of the planned demonstrations say they will display a mass outpouring that will inspire and educate many on the scene and many others more widely, and thereby fuel more informed, sustained, and militant climate activism to come.
Is there any obvious and most frequently applicable answer to the “it is something good that can become better so we should support it – against the – no, it is too little to be worth much and could even become worse, so we should oppose it” dispute that typically puts leftists on both sides of important issues? Sadly, no. Resolution has to be case by case. But there are some general insights to take to thinking about such disputes, I think.
Sometimes endeavors really are doomed to be coopted, or distorted, no matter what is done by their supporters, and thus do not warrant support. Indeed, it is always at least possible that changes, even if won, will devolve as long as the existing key institutions of society persist. The explanation is quite simple. If established structures can’t literally prevent all changes, they will certainly seek to bend, cajole, force, and/or coopt any change that does occur into accord with their existence. However, to look at that undeniable fact as definitive reason to avoid seeking such changes, without examining the details and weighing the possibilities, or to just spin out the negative possibilities and say – no way – is basically an argument against doing anything at all that would fall short of winning a new world now. Anything less than winning everything, after all, could potentially be coopted, corrupted, or repressed. And if we should oppose anything that could potentially go bad, then we would have to oppose everything short of, well, winning all desired changes at once. However, with no efforts made to win anything short of winning everything, there will be no processes able to raise consciousness, school activists, and spawn organizations in turn able to win conditions more suited to easier further struggles, and as a result there would be no winning everything, ever.
We fight for unions, against apartheid, for abortion rights, against global warming, and even against wars – and our efforts of course have positive aims, but also, might, even in winning those immediate aims, devolve to yield less than desired results and sometimes even to bring on negative distortions and debits worse than retained gains. Does this mean we should never seek anything that is less than everything? We want the world and we want it now – of course – so we shouldn’t seek or abide anything less than winning the world, now? No. Winning the world entails engaging in struggles that seek lesser gains on the road to seeking more gains.
It turns out that the debate in general can only rarely be resolved by lining up possible benefits and weighing them against possible debits. What resolution needs, instead, is a compelling and detailed case for how seeking immediate sought gains – such as independence, or having a big march and rally, or whatever – would inexorably devolve or decay into nothing that is good, or even into outcomes that are bad – or, on the other side, to make a compelling and detailed case for how winning immediate gains would have a good probability of yielding not only short term benefits, but continued efforts to win still more gains from a strengthened position.
And there is another indicator to use, though it comes into play later, to assess the merit of competing viewpoints. In the current case, for example, would the Scottish yes camp celebrate a yes vote and go home – or would it fight on to avoid the win being corrupted and to win still more gains? Likewise, and given the real outcome, will the Scottish yes camp bounce back from the no vote to try to galvanize newly revealed energies into new efforts, or will it go home, depressed?
On the other side of the dispute, will the Scottish no camp celebrate the no vote and go home satisfied, or will it seek new campaigns? Would the Scottish no camp have bounced back from a yes vote and applied its energies to trying to get the best outcomes possible out of having won independence, or would it have gone home, depressed.
I believe, albeit from a great distance, that the loss of a vote can be harbinger of a much bigger win, including in the case of Scottish independence. 45% evidenced substantial opposition not just to UK rule, but to austerity and top down rule period. Why can’t that provide a foundation for much more? What if, as I suspect, the loss reflected for many potential yes votes – who voted no – worry that no one was prepared for a victory and no one knew where it would lead, or even where most people wanted it to lead. In that case, what if next time the yes stance included and was able to disseminate a clear and inspiring government program that the movement would battle to accomplish, in the event of a win? What if, indeed, in the interim between now and some future face off – the yes side were to start forming local assemblies all over Scotland to begin local self management even inside the shell of the old system, and to conceive and agitate for the above mentioned program? These steps are possible. They would reveal the ultimate power of leaving the UK and, more to the point, of positively taking control of Scottish destiny. And the same applies elsewhere, of course.
There is a final general point, as well. The no camp, in Scotland’s case, and in most such cases, had an additional task that a yes camp didn’t have. I speak of people on the left in the no camp, not those just against change per se, or for UK rule, and austerity, and so on. In general, do those on the left saying don’t seek x, or don’t join y, or don’t demand z, or whatever – offer some process, campaign, struggle, or approach, that promises to involve less risk and/or to win more gains then the one they are opposing? If not, then they are implicitly or perhaps even explicitly saying don’t try that – it is too risky – and since we have nothing much else to offer, you will just have to put up with the status quo. That is typically not going to win over left activists, especially when the broad public is in motion.
For that matter, having won the vote – will leftists in the no camp join with leftists in the yes camp, to develop a project that has clearer aims, fuller agenda, better means to communicate the full range of its aims, and that is better backed at the grassroots, and that is, for those reasons, able to win valuable ground without losing any offsetting benefits that people need? That is what we can hope to see, and be inspired by, if it happens, in Scotland.
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1 Comment
Michael – who were the ‘serious leftists’ who you found to oppose Scottish independence?
There was no division in the left wing of Scotland bar a few die hard ‘old Labour’ figures, such as George Galloway who harbours a long standing resentment to the SNP.
The success of the Yes campaign was that it drew together support from a multi-faceted collection of left wing groups. There was Women for Independence, Scottish Green Party, The Scottish Socialist Party, Solidarity Party, The SNP, various business groups and a host of other decentralized groups under the broad ‘Yes’ Campaign.
The core theme that united these groups together was that independence offers Scotland a vehicle to break away from the neoliberal consensus that is offered by all three main parties in London. Granted there are divisions in strategy and vision thereafter – e.g. the Socialists and other working class groups like ‘The Common Weal’ project were not in favour of lowering corporation tax – but the core point remains, it will be the people living in Scotland that will be able to decide these issues at a later date, rather than Westminster.
By aligning themselves so closely to the Westminster consensus, the Labour Party has now further divorced itself from the strong working class support it used to enjoy in Scotland. Its membership has been plummeting in recent years and there is now a significant degree of organisation to strategically vote against Labour at the next UK wide General Election. The party is no longer the people’s party in Scotland.
So too, some of the Unions who came out in defence of the Union and contributed to the barrage of negative scare stories in an attempt to frighten people into voting for the status quo. In this respect they were successful – particularly amongst older demographics who were less informed than social-media savvy younger generations.
I can understand how Labour and the Unions might be perceived as being on the Left from the vantage point of other countries but believe me when I say (I live in Scotland and was part of the Yes campaign for years) the left of Scotland was united under the Yes campaign.
The Yes campaign had a genuine grassroots campaign that Labour now wants to ‘tap into’. They will find that near impossible to do but the grassroots movement of the Yes campaign will continue – and indeed is doing so spectacularly as I write – to organise, educate and take appropriate action to advance a fairer agenda in Scotland, using independence as the most expedient strategy.