This is the question that will be submitted to Scottish people on 18 September 2014. Typical analysis for such a questions are quite complex and if you would like to have a handy overview of them, feel free to search Wikipedia for “Scottish independence referendum, 2014”. We are most definitively not interested in standard ways of thinking. What we are interested in is political evolution. As we have stated in our article The Three Laws of Political System Change and Political Systems Lifecycle there is a political evolutionary path that all peoples of earth must follow. There are no shortcuts.
Scottish independence would qualify in terms of political evolution albeit a small one. That’s OK. Evolution is by definition slow but steady. One of the key elements of such small steps is the confidence that we don’t need “them” (whoever “them” may be). In the case of Scotland, “them” is Britain and this is good.
Why is this important?
Because the path towards Austro-Libertarianism lies in the eventual realization that we don’t need “them”; to be precise, “any of them”. Eventually and over time people will come to understand that governments are not only not required, but that they are an impediment to sustainable and lasting higher standards of living. But this understanding cannot come by through sudden change. People dislike unknowns for biological reasons (unknowns have the tendency to shorten your life and hence preventing you from spreading your genes). As such all political evolution must necessarily be slow and retain a great deal of “knowns” from the previous system. In the case of Scotland, they are shifting from a larger government where they have less influence to a smaller one where they hope to have a meaningful saying… at least that’s the perception. However, they are still retaining a government. They are not ready to dissolve Scotland. How could they be? They are not yet disillusioned and economic conditions are not disastrous enough.
Yet, if Scotland chooses independence, they would have taken a large step towards liberation.
If you look at current world affairs you will notice that the general trend in the world is towards smaller and smaller countries, not towards political unification. For many peoples, political unification is in the past. Of course, not all people are at this stage, many have yet to be unified before they can proceed towards independence. They are not ready.
However, despite of so many peoples being in so many different political evolutionary stages it is clear that in general terms the goal is to unify economically but not politically. People are finally beginning to understand the difference. We need economic freedom in order to increase our standards of living but in order to have such freedom we don’t need larger countries dictating market rules through political brute force. Trade agreements are far better than political unification. The message is finally seeping through.
Of course, the end game of this process is total independence through the eventual breaking down of countries into smaller and smaller units until they all eventually vanish leaving only what really counts: independent people.
People are starting to understand that the perceived advantages of having a government are totally and completely outweighed by the debacles (economic and otherwise) that they produce.
People are starting to understand that economic benefits are not dependent upon governments but upon entrepreneurs.
Of course, these lessons are still far, far in the future, but it is a beginning. The good news (fantastic actually) is that this process is relentless and unstoppable. As such we congratulate all Scottish people for having the guts to attempt a step forward.
We say: GO SCOTLAND GO!
Then again, you may say something else. Your choice.
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
