Ferguson: ‘Failed state’

Ferguson says the Yes movement disregards history:

Scottish history offers proof that even the most failed state can be fixed – by uniting with a richer and more tranquil neighbour.

He says the Union of the Parliaments in 1707 turned it into the Silicon Valley of the 18th century with Glasgow University as Stanford, by sublimating internal divisions in the UK. But leaving the union could reopen old divisions, and some new ones:

The reality is that, as an independent country, Scotland would be far more likely to revert to its pre-1707 bad habits than to morph magically into “Scandland”. For this debate on independence has opened some old rifts and created some new ones, too.