Tag Archives: independence

Should there be more and smaller states? (including Scotland?)

Writer Charles Stross says yes. I do not have an opinion on what to vote in the Scottish independence referendum tomorrow, but I enjoyed Stross’ long-term perspective:

95% of the discussion in the referendum debates and on the street has been about short term issues that can be resolved one way or the other in the coming days and months (occasionally, months or single-digit years).
[…]
In making my mind up, I looked at the long term prospects.
[…]
My feeling is that we’d be better served by a group of much smaller nations working in a loose confederation or treaty structure. Their job should be to handle local issues (yes, this is localism) while compartmentalizing failure modes: the failure modes of a gigantic imperial power are almost always far worse than those of a smaller nation (compare the disintegration of the Soviet Union with that of Czecheslovakia).