There was, for a space of about six months between the release of the White Paper on Independence and the Easter break, a huge upsurge in interest in the Nordic aspects of Scotland’s independence movement. Assorted documentaries on TV and Radio, some SNP rhetoric on ‘Nordic’ childcare and a plethora of newspaper columns ranging from the meticulously informed to the blatantly phoned-in all sought to either support or criticise the idea of Scotland’s Nordic dream.
But then silence.
Criticism of the Nordic Way (a regular and quite conscious trope of the Nordic Council) has come in from the unionist side with their talk of massive tax hikes and from the far left who see the Nordic model as a Faustian pact with capitalism hiding under a friendly veneer of Moomin and mid-century furniture. One of the big problems is that nobody is quite sure what Nordic means. If you’re a political scientist the it refers very specifically to a unique system of tax-based growth economy ploughing profits back into human capital. If you’re of a more cultural bent it is mid-century classicism and nice cakes and Carl Malmsten chairs, or on a more dubious level a perceived heritage shared by Scotland. If, like me, you occupy the that third space between the policy wonks and economists and people munching on Kanelbullar in the West End and going to crayfish parties, it is a useful tool in Scotland’s political lexicon.
What you see most of all is how Nordicness allows Scotland to articulate its own better self, and the apparent waning of interest in Northern Scotland is slightly worrying. Irrespective of how genuine Nordic Scotland is, the referendum campaign appears to be in danger of slipping back into a fight over family silver and half-truths. The Northern dream has briefly allowed Scotland to glimpse an alternative to welfare cuts and Taylor Wimpey homes, daring to speculate on a new aesthetic without recourse to nationalist shibboleths.
#1 by Mike Danson on April 21, 2014 - 10:53 pm
Interesting but I think it’s embedded into the Common Weal and Jimmy Reid Foundation papers and work, and is consistent with much of the RIC and Green agenda. Changes also reflected in the importance of Women for Independence, islands and remote communities.
#2 by BM on April 22, 2014 - 7:45 am
I think Dom is quite right here: no-one knows what “nordic” means. There’s a lot of stereotyping and second-hand “facts” about the Nordic countries/model, viz. Blair McDougall’s “57% tax in Norway”, which is not only impossible under Norwegian tax law, but wasn’t challenged by the presenter.
The Nordic countries all have quite different outlooks and variations in tax levels. Denmark has the highest income tax rates, but in Norway, where I live in work, I payed less tax last year than I would have in the UK.
I don’t know if you saw picture going around twitter with how much a pint costs in the UK vs Norway, Sweden, Denmark, etc, but it really shows the knots their tying themselves up in. Labour are for minimum pricing, for higher taxes, and budget after budget raised the duty on alcohol, and yet here they’re criticising the very things they claim to want. Also, the main reason why things are expensive in Norway (and why the taxes are lower than you might expect) is because everyone in the supply and production chain has to get a living wage. Again, this is exactly what Labour supposedly wants.
Personally, I don’t think Scotland can be a Nordic country in the strictest sense, but what we can do is show that the Nordic model can work outside of the Nordic countries; that any people can be almost nearly perfect.
#3 by James on April 22, 2014 - 7:43 pm
It also often means a terrible attitude to women (and sex workers in particular), contrary to the fantasy. Grim and depressing examples here.
#4 by Abulhaq on April 24, 2014 - 9:10 am
Hopefully we will soon remove the British millstone from our neck. Do we need to burden ourselves with a Nordic one? We need to find our own socio-political level.