This is the model Scotland must adopt to improve all our lives
Good evening! This week's edition of the In Common newsletter comes from Professor Iain Black, Strathclyde Business School and Common Weal board member. To receive the newsletter direct to your inbox every week click here.
AS I write this, the Scottish Government has announced it is pulling back on another action aimed at reaching climate targets – its target to reduce road traffic by 20% by 2030. Eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate crisis, improving public services – all have been promised, none have been planned for.
The Scottish Government's action means many will remain tied to increasingly expensive and polluting cars which damage health and extract wealth and hand it to global corporations. Our SMEs and remaining large companies are struggling under Trump tariffs and households are about to get a higher energy bill because the price of electricity remains tied to the price of gas.
What plans or priorities, politicians or parties are giving you hope?
(Image: Andrew Milligan)
To create hope, your plan or alternative must achieve three things: it must feel important, be 'goal-congruent' (it must do what you say it does) and it must feel possible. Do John Swinney's plans to grow the economy and produce tax revenue feel important or match your priorities when you are hungry and cold? Does it seem possible to reduce the number of children living in poverty when, after 20 years in which our GDP has doubled and tax revenue has increased, child poverty rates have remained broadly unchanged?
So what might give us hope? Something based on rigorous research and observation over decades? Something tried, tested and successful in a previous time of great crises? An approach to government called 'National Mission Oriented Market Making' may be a mouthful but it fits that bill.
(Image: Karol Serewis/Gallo)
National mission-oriented market making is a strategic and interventionist approach to market creation and maintenance based on the work of Professor Mariana Mazzucato (above). Here, governments recognise their capacity to structure economic activity to address persistent, intensifying and multiplying environmental and social crises – and they do something about it.
They adopt a crisis orientation and direct national assets from private, public and third sectors to develop markets and structures required to address agreed national missions. This involves managing collaborations for the design, supply, manufacturing, construction, maintenance, remanufacturing and recycling of products needed to address persistent crises.
In Scotland, these missions could be based on their capacity to address three interlinked crises: the climate emergency, the fossil fuel cost of living crisis and the Scottish Government's relationship with business. They would link to needs we all share: warmth, safety, shelter, sustenance, mobility, meaningful work, sense of purpose, community and socialising.
This could translate into three big missions. First, everyone must benefit from Scotland's energy. We would focus on becoming a nation of 'prosumers' where our buildings, based on a fabric-first approach, are warm and have low running costs. Excess energy is stored and used when needed. We would need a national insulation and retrofit company and national public energy agency to co-ordinate and deliver at scale.
Second, there must be enough good food for everyone. The mission would be to provide nutritious, tasty, healthy and affordable food. Professor Tim Jackson in his recent book estimates that it would cost the UK less to make such food available for free than it costs the NHS to treat the outcomes of our ultra-high-processed diets.
Third, access for all to active and low carbon travel. We would just need to go to cities like Lund in Sweden to see what this looks and feels like. Achieving this through safe, clean, reliable and cheap public transport and the ability to walk or wheel to our work and places of play could free us from the monthly cost of a car. We'd need a national transport agency controlling construction and maintenance of transport infrastructure.
Delivery of the missions is by SMEs and investment is de-risked by guaranteeing long-term support for strategically important markets. National bodies, overseen by citizen assemblies, invest in and own infrastructure and ruthlessly focus on providing a supportive, consistent regulatory environment.
This approach rejects the approach of the past 40 years where governments avoid intervening in markets where possible. Instead, the model followed is war-time prioritisation and mobilisation. It is the approach behind how the US was reorganised after Pearl Harbour so it was able to launch 2710 Liberty cargo ships in less than four years, from 18 yards at a top rate of two every three days. All achieved while bringing women into the workforce and improving industrial democracy.
(Image: Newsquest) Professor Ailsa Henderson (above) reports this week that the majority of voters in England describe themselves as 'angry' or 'fearful' of politics. While not conducted in Scotland, I suspect the results are generalisable. She went on to say: 'English politics is marked by continued grievance, frustration and anger rather than hope.'
Can we honestly say that more focus on growth and more dialling back on climate actions gives us hope? Can we expect more extractive growth funded by the Scottish National Investment Bank to give us hope? Or can we look to what has worked in the past and set ourselves national missions where everyone benefits from a decent warm home, good food and low-cost stress-free mobility?
Important, goal congruent and possible.
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