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Why is it morally wrong for Scotland's retaining the pound after h

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fourtytwo

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If Scotland votes for independence, why would it be morally wrong for her to use the pound rather than invent her own currency?

Nothing about it strikes me as particularly immoral.

If one is going to use a fiat currency, one can use someone else's: Pound, Euro, Dollar, Swiss F., etc. One can create one;s own currency, but peg it to someone else's (as Hong Kong does), and this is equivalent to using someone else's, as long as one sticks to the peg. Or, one can create one's own, and not peg it in any fixed, algorithmic way. The last allows one more "flexibility": but, this has both pros and cons.

What are your thoughts?

Edited by softwareNerd
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If Scotland votes for independence, why would it be morally wrong for her to use the pound rather than invent her own currency?

Same reason it's wrong to use it in the UK: because an official currency is imposed on people by force.

Scotland should neither use the pound nor invent her own currency, it should let private banks and individuals decide what to use for money, and the government should accept voluntary contributions from citizens in a variety of currencies.

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I also think there are far bigger worries to be had about the morality of voting YES in the Scottish referendum, than whether they retain the pound or not. Nationalist leader threatens "day of reckoning" against businesses that spoke up against independence:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11091801/Big-business-warned-of-day-of-reckoning-if-Scots-vote-Yes.html

“This referendum is about power, and when we get a Yes majority, we will use that power for a day of reckoning with BP and the banks.

“The heads of these companies are rich men, in cahoots with a rich English Tory Prime Minister, to keep Scotland’s poor, poorer through lies and distortions. The power they have now to subvert our democracy will come to an end with a Yes.”

He said BP will have to “learn the meaning of nationalisation” and if it wants access to “monster fields” off Shetland “it will have to learn to bend the knee to a greater power – us, the sovereign people of Scotland.”

“We will be the masters of the oilfields, not BP or any other of the majors,” he said, warning Bob Dudley, its chief executive, that this was not “mere rhetoric”.

Mr Sillars warned Scotland’s bankers their “casino days” were over and their businesses would be split between their retail and investment sections, adding: “If your greed takes the latter down, there will be no rescue.”

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The idea that a poorer part of a welfare state can become richer by breaking away is quite odd. However, one way for the math to work is to freeload. The most obvious way the pro-independence side intends to freeload is to take a larger share of oil-taxes. Another is to cut per-capita defense funding, including nit trying to join .

I find it odd that this election will be decided as if independence were some run-of-the-mill law. It is more like a constitutional change, and ought to require more than just a simple majority of voters saying "yes". In addition, allowing 16 year olds to vote is just stupid.

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Could it be a good thing for England for Scotland to separate? It seems they would be cutting loose a welfare dependant as well as a large source of socialist MPs. The downside would be that the new independence would allow the Scottish government to more quickly destroy the productive enterprises in the country which would be a detriment to England as they would be losing trading partners.

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Scotland is slightly poorer, and not enough to really make a difference. I should have noted this in my previous post: when the pro-independence side claim the England has kept them poorer, they're not only making an odd argument, but they're also exaggerating. England itself is far from uniformly rich. The focus is the London area, just as it would be New York and other large metros here. In general, the South East of England is the richest area, with London as the hub. If one goes north, particularly past the middle industrial area, per capita incomes are far less. As you approach Scotland, the per-capita incomes are less than Scotland's average. Of course, Scotland's own wealth is in Edinburgh and Glasgow. 

 

TL;DR:   The differences between England and Scotland are insignificant.

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I suspect a lot of the growth in the numbers of separatists is due to the general growth of xenophobia in Britain. As of yet, Scotland has a relatively small immigrant/non-white population, and a lot of people would like to keep it that way.

What they fail to realize is that a large welfare state + keeping out immigrants = an aging population, making the arrangement unsustainable.

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