
by Alan McCombes
A fully-fledged socialist society could never be achieved within the borders
of a small country such as Scotland. The eradication of all social and
economic inequality could only be achieved on an all-European, or perhaps
even a world scale. Nonetheless, a Scottish socialist government could
at least begin to move in the direction of socialism by taking control
over key sectors of the economy, by introducing workplace and community
democracy, and by implementing radical and popular reforms which would
set an example for other countries to follow.
A new socialist economy would be based on a range of different types of
enterprises with the emphasis on social ownership. Large-scale industry,
oil, gas, electricity, the national railway network could be owned by the
people of Scotland as a whole and run by democratically elected boards
in which workers, consumers, and the wider socialist government were all
represented. These would not be based on the old-style nationalisation
projects. Instead of centralised planning by a remote bureaucracy, there
could be decentralised democratic planning using the most
advanced information technology. Where practically possible, socially owned
enterprises could be broken down into smaller sub-units to enable closer
scrutiny by the wider public.
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