Are the Scots entrepreneurial or gullible?
Sir Stefan Stern’s “Billions made so far from home” July 7, where he comments on so many “of the UK’s richest . . . are Scottish born – though most have found it necessary to leave the land of their birth to make their fortunes”, led me to think about Richard Llewellyn's “How green was my valley” and John Ford’s Oscar winning movie adaptation of it, even though that particular green valley was welsh.
I once used the “green valley” allegory in a speech to extol the development virtues of blissful ignorance, which allowed Venezuelans go to the USA, Americans to Europe and Italians to Venezuela; and everyone daring to do business just because they lacked information about how difficult the local circumstances were; and since nationals knowing about the hardships too well would never dream of doing anything.
And so the question that now goes around in my head after reading Stern is whether the Scottish born have an especial entrepreneurial sense… or are just an especially gullible lot.
I once used the “green valley” allegory in a speech to extol the development virtues of blissful ignorance, which allowed Venezuelans go to the USA, Americans to Europe and Italians to Venezuela; and everyone daring to do business just because they lacked information about how difficult the local circumstances were; and since nationals knowing about the hardships too well would never dream of doing anything.
And so the question that now goes around in my head after reading Stern is whether the Scottish born have an especial entrepreneurial sense… or are just an especially gullible lot.
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