Scotland’s working-class values are being pushed aside by a modern culture that prizes grievance over personal responsibility, according to Edinburgh-based technology professional and entrepreneur Allan Brown.
Looking back at industrial Scotland
In a commentary piece published on 3 September 2026, Brown argues that the traditional, self-reliant values associated with working-class life in Scotland have been recast by some modern progressives as outdated or “right-wing”. He says that older ideas of thrift, discipline and community responsibility are being replaced by a view that society is always stacked against people.
Brown points to his own family history to explain the change. His father, whom he describes as “a socialist and a Labour man through and through,” spent his working life with the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) after starting work at 15 delivering groceries on a heavy merchant’s bicycle in High Bonnybridge. Brown says the local area was shaped by heavy industry, with a brickworks employing his paternal grandfather and the Smith & Wellstood iron foundry in nearby Dennyloanhead where his maternal grandfather worked as a moulder.
He recalls one incident in which molten iron spilled into his grandfather’s boot, leaving him lucky to keep his foot, but causing his thick black hair to turn white overnight.
Discipline and thrift
Brown says the foundry generation lived by strict domestic habits as well as hard work. He describes his grandfather washing off grime at the kitchen sink and reminding him not to waste water. In Brown’s view, this kind of upbringing reflected a wider working-class code built on personal responsibility, thrift and suspicion of “unearned handouts”.
He writes that the politics of that era were not simply about voting Labour, but about a temperament rooted in tradition and accountability. Brown argues that even “Old Labour” was, in his words, “instinctively small-c conservative” in its expectations of character and self-reliance.
From politics to education
The article says Brown now feels that framework has been lost. After a decades-long career in technology and launching his own business at 63, he says he sees many people left “politically homeless” between a modern left that trades in grievances and a traditional right that feels culturally distant.
He argues that the shift has moved beyond politics and into education, saying schools and academic institutions now treat discipline and accountability as restrictive. Brown links this to the views of Katharine Birbalsingh, whom he describes as “Britain’s most vocal advocate for traditional educational values.”
Brown says the consequences can be seen in working life and relationships, where he believes resilience, determination and sustained focus have been weakened. He argues that modern culture too often teaches people to look outward for excuses instead of inward for stamina.
Social mobility and the future
Brown also says the working-class struggle was never about “top-down state dependency or a culture of victimhood.” He cites the Red Clydeside movement and figures such as Jimmy Reid as examples of campaigns rooted in “the dignity of labour, productivity and the personal values required to improve one’s circumstances and build a community from the ground up.”
He concludes that Scotland should bring back values such as enterprise, thrift and hard work in a modern, global context. Brown says those principles remain alive among “the quiet majority of pragmatic Scots” and should not be demonised if the country wants future hope.
Allan Brown is an Edinburgh based technology professional and entrepreneur. Raised in a traditional Central Belt working class family, he runs his own independent business after a 35 year career in big tech.
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