LAST week, we discussed the need for a vision for independence. This week, we explain why establishment parties like Labour and the SNP cannot create a vision outside conventional wisdom.

Save a total revolution and a smashing down of the current system, every vision for an independent Scotland will be built on the back – or at least the foundations – of the economic system, the social fabric, the institutions and the resources we can claim as our own.

So, avoiding my revolutionary tendencies, those support structures are the only place to start when thinking about a vision for an independent Scotland. From where will our vision grow?

(Image: PA)

To move this forward, I have taken inspiration from Gregory Hayden, an American Institutional Economist who created a “policy analysis paradigm”.

“Our knowledge base is sufficient to do the research to understand our problems, our will is more than adequate, our work ethic is strong, our resources are abundant and people are sufficiently educated to carry out the tasks in a technological society. One major deficiency is that we have not had the analytical means necessary to meld our will, knowledge and institutions into a policy paradigm that allows us to obtain success.” (Gregory Hayden, 2006)

Hayden’s thesis was that we can create a new vision only once we understand the vision or paradigm, as he called it, in the here and now.

He believed the policies formed almost naturally from the “policy paradigm” we created. Policies were the nuts and bolts of a vision. So Hayden broke this paradigm into four elementary stages, each affecting and being affected by the other:

  • As a society, we have shared beliefs, ethical standards and values
  • These allow us to set shared goals
  • We then create models that reflect our values and shared goals, and then we decide on a methodology to help us measure our progress
  • We set specific performance indicators to ensure our society is on the right path.

Understanding the framework from the ground up offers valuable insights into policies likely to emerge from any policy framework. The values, beliefs, goals, methodology and measurements define the policies.

Across Western democracies, we have a very similar policy paradigm. Neoliberalism has crafted and amended it over the past 40 years. Here is my detailed understanding of what that policy paradigm looks like, taken from our new paper: How do we design an economic framework to serve people, place and planet?

(Image: William Thomson)

My very brief summary of this paradigm states that economic growth, usually generated by freeing the market and the government taking a back seat, will lead to greater wellbeing. Continued technological advancements and the genius of the human mind will overcome any perceived constraints to enable our economy to grow. This vision, constructed through values, goals and metrics, creates today’s policies.

Observing this framework enables you to fully understand the strait-jacket, too easily slipped on by Rachel Reeves and the Labour Party. It also explains the SNP’s vision for independence. Referring to last week's post, where we detailed the SNP’s vision (go on, remind yourself, and then come back), you can see how their vision fits so snuggly into the “conventional wisdom”, or as we call it, The Growth Paradigm.

Sticking with this paradigm ensures that minimal changes occur. As Donella Meadows, one of the founders of System Analysis, said: “Putting different hands on the faucets may change the rate at which the faucets turn, but if they’re the same old faucets, plumbed into the same old system, turned according to the same old information and goals and rules, the system isn’t going to change much.”

(Image: PA)

No more Jeremy Hunt. Instead, we have Rachel Reeves (above). Different hands, same faucets. Or, in the case of independence, no longer part of the UK, but with all the same policies.

Until we change this paradigm, we can only deliver a vision that fits within the system's confines. Conventional wisdom dominates. JK Galbraith wrote: “Because familiarity is such an important test of acceptability, the acceptable ideas have great stability.”

But in these troubled times, this very “familiarity” threatens the “stability” of our society, if not its very existence. And it is undoubtedly no foundation for a vision for an independent Scotland.

To create a vision, we must design a different policy paradigm. Next week, we will turn our attention to that.

Click here to download our new paper: How do we design an economic framework to serve people, place, and planet?