‘An independent Scotland could take a world lead here ... and it clearly needs to do so

working: the crisis in the EU, slowdown of world demand, sluggish American expansion and so on.

If economic recovery depends mostly on what happens elsewhere, why adopt anything other than a neutral economic strategy at home and wait for things to ‘ turn up’ abroad?

Recognising one’s own economic impotence is not an admission of failure. It is a first, liberating step in orientating oneself to the modern world.

Not adopting policies because of their presumed (but highly debatable) economic effects frees national governments to take political actions which are good in themselves in terms of their immediate benefits for individuals.

OF course, education may be a great economic investment because it produces innovative, adaptable individuals able to cope with the international economy.

However, t he overwhelming argument for spending more on education is that it makes us better and more interesting people and our society more varied, cultural and lively, with less social problems, with the same for health, welfare and public services in general.

We should spend on these for their own sake, because they improve life for ordinary individuals, not because it puts more money into the economy.

The justification should not be economic growth but the concrete benefits that such political action brings to individual citizens.

As Scotland is one of the wealthier countries in terms of GDP per capita, we should be able to pay for such benefits under independence.

However, a very relevant point is that Scotland’s big wealth generators – oil, whisky, financial services – are owned elsewhere so, while their production boosts GDP, a big slice of the profits is lost to the Scottish economy.

This situation is replicated with all the other multinationals, not to say the English-owned companies operating in Scotland.

Scotland is not on its own. It is simply an extreme case of the kind of absentee ownership and consequent loss of government revenue which afflicts most countries in the globalised world – including the UK.

In effect, national governments have invited companies to evade tax by locating their headquarters where they do not pay it. But, by legalising tax evasion on such a massive scale, they have largely created their own sovereign debt crises.

This has to be seen at bottom as a government revenue crisis, with the income not sufficient to cover the services due to their citizens.

It would be prudent to balance the books by cutting extravagances such as Trident, empty aircraft carriers and high-speed rail. However, the major contribution must be from increased revenue.

The obvious way to do so is to tax all internal commercial activity at the same rate, whether companies are domiciled locally or abroad, creating a level playing field for native companies, which no longer have to pay higher taxes than their competitors, and filling the gap in government revenue to provide adequate services and support for its citizens.

It would even benefit the multinationals even though they would actually have to pay for the public services they receive.

Removing incentives for evasion renders them more internally transparent and accountable.

An independent Scotland could take a world lead here – and clearly needs to do so unless it is content to allow its natural resources to continue to seep away.

This country is largely immune to the standard argument that taxing companies fairly will drive them away.

They cannot simply carry off the oil and whisky.

Moreover, once one country has introduced fair taxation, it is a good bet that many others will follow, including the rest of the UK.

Let Scotland lead again in terms of its innovative social and economic model – and flourish from it. Ian Budge is professor emeritus at the Department of Government, University of Essex