Scotland Just Says No as Foucault Rolls Over in His Grave

     Let me first start by doing something I try not to do too often-give some credit to Scott Sumner:

     "I presume everyone knows by now, but I haven’t seen other bloggers discuss the election.  The Scottish independence campaign lost badly."

     "That’s probably why the Spanish stock exchange was up sharply earlier today. Markets are the first to know."

     http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=27584&cpage=1#comment-365210

      Maybe by the time he wrote that almost everyone knew but I didn't and I heard it there first and after checking elsewhere i didn't see anyone talking about it so Kudos to Scott. 

       Of course, just because he was right about this doesn't mean he's right about the fiscal multiplier being zero or full monetary offset-he's at times 'suggested' that the multiplier may even be beneath zero. 

       What would Foucault make of this no to independence? My jibe about rolling over in his grave assumes he was the ultimate proponent of 'revolution for the sake of revolution'-almost reminding you of Bakunin who thought that any kinds of 'violence against the state' is in some deep sense liberatory. 

      Mao too believed in 'permanent revolution' which was something as he was at the time the undisputed head of his own government. Foucault had embraced the Iranian revolution of 1980 not according to Zizek for any fascination with premodern Theocracy as an alternative to 'Western Nihilism' but rather, his fascination with revolution as such. Here the means are baptized holy-revolution is to be celebrated not because it will necessarily give us a Utopia or even a much netter society than what we have now but simply because revolution itself is to be celebrated. 

         That's because it was the one time when man didn't do what comes easiest and most natural to him: for once he chose not to obey. 

      Again, who knows what he might have said about this. This is not how revolution is supposed to happen anyway-at the ballot box where all parties observe a proper code of conduct, etc. Not exactly Che Guevera-who talked about revolution at the point of a gun. 

       The Irish Independent spun this as the result being somehow not really no as 'the largest city' voted yes. 

      http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/scotland-referendum/scotland-says-no-to-independence-30599258.html

      One major argument for no was monetary-if Scotland had left the pound it could have been a mess. There was the argument that they could have left the UK but remained on the pound but that might have given Scotland the worst of all worlds model of the euro where there is monetary but not fiscal union and the record there is obviously something n o one would want to replicate. 

        Even with the independence measure defeated there is talk of 'devolution' going forward with Cameron promising a ' more independent England as well as a more independent Scotland and Wales.'  We'll see where this all might lead. Meanwhile the UK is maybe seeking it's own independence from the euro.