The tight systems of ownership and control which characterised business in Scotland in the heyday of empire have been transformed.
Even in the 1970s, the structure of economic power was an amalgamation of old and new wealth, but since then, business takeovers have significantly weakened local ownership and control.
Iconic Scottish businesses – whisky, North Sea oil, and Scottish finance – are no longer in Scottish hands to any degree that matters.
Landownership in Scotland is highly concentrated in few hands, and that a mere ten owners hold more than 10% of private land.
Nevertheless, much of it is owned by ‘traditional’ landowning families going back more than a century.
The nexus of power and politics has nevertheless changed, notably in transforming the social character of Scotland’s political classes.
The key conundrum for Scottish politics is decision-making in the context in which so many material assets are not amenable to local control.
