Scotland and the UK require a reinvigoration of the equalising institutions such as strong trade unions, redistributive taxation and higher minimum wages that in the past moderated the tendency of a laissez faire economy to produce an income distribution of extremes.
Deregulation of labour and product markets cannot be reconciled with aspirations for broadly shared prosperity. An economy run for and by economic elites leaves society not just less equal and less democratic but also much more vulnerable to systemic shocks and risks and less efficient as a matter of economics.
An alternative approach to globalisation and competitiveness will include policies to rebalance, to invest in new technologies that generate high-quality domestic manufacturing employment, and to promote environmental and labour market policies to ensure globalisation benefits working people in both developed and developing nations.
Manufacturing industry helps cement communities with middle income/middle status jobs and is therefore a force for social cohesion in a way that services are not. A new policy agenda, including a low carbon industrial strategy for Scotland, is required to sustain and grow manufacturing