A Worker in a Worker's State

Similarly, this review cannot deal with the positive aspects of the work . This is unfortunate because Nairn's initial question : " . . . why has the threat of secession apparently eclipsed that of class struggle in the 1970's?", was well raised, if unsatisfactorily answered . Also, more specifically, his historical study of the unique compromise between Lowland Scottish bourgeois elements and English Imperialism achieved by the Act of Union, which left an array of characteristically Scottish institutions of 'civil society' church, legal system and education is essential for any evaluation of the strength of the current nationalist revival there . However, fashionable 'neo-Gramscian' analysis of superstructures and 'civil society' is mere sociology if the 'anatomy of civil society' (the capital relation and the structural contradictions arising on the basis of capital accumulation) is left out of the account . Nairn's dubious materialism, and more or less complete rejection of a working-class stand-point in this book needs to be made clear especially given the number of radical intellectuals and journalists who are already using its arguments to justify support for 'progressive nationalism' north of the border .