ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the conditions of possibility for the imagination of the Scottish economy. It seeks to understand how rival classes, alliances and parties in Scotland have identified, privileged and sought to stabilise some activities from the confused total of all economic activity. The chapter addresses what the example of Scotland can offer for the theory of the economic imaginary; what the economic imaginary concept can offer to the sociology of Scotland; and suggests some implications of the research. Sociology has been crucial in breaking down established, taken-for-granted, “common sense” ideas that help reproduce inequalities as inevitable. Scotland offers some interesting exceptions to general assumptions about political economy. Scotland’s current phase of nationalism belongs among these forces but occupies an ideological sub-category of its own.
