Given what is undoubtedly a duel between two warring left-wing tribes, I’ve often been asked to try and summarize the tortuous Scottish independence campaign from a libertarian perspective to an American audience. With this in mind it’s always seemed fitting to refer to the wit and wisdom of one of Scotland’s greatest transatlantic exports in recent years, Groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons.

In an episode entitled “Milhouse Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” Bart and Lisa put their differences aside and reconcile, which prompts the following exchange between Willie and Principal Skinner:

Groundskeeper Willie: It won’t last. Brothers and sisters are natural enemies. Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!

Principal Skinner: You Scots sure are a contentious people.

Groundskeeper Willie: You just made an enemy for life!

To those of us on the right, this nicely sums up the independence campaign: Scots and other Scots fighting over who can further spread the specter of socialism, inhibit individual liberty, and, ultimately, ruin Scotland. Both sides have strived to out-promise each other on more public spending, greater economic centralization, and cradle-to-grave public services. One could be forgiven for thinking that Scots of a free-market persuasion have as much life as Adam Smith at Canongate cemetery. They wouldn’t be too far away from the truth, either.

And yet as conservatives and libertarians continue to lament the passing of Scotland’s once proud history as the ‘Athens of the North,’ far from wiping out the last free-marketers, independence could ultimately provide a boon to the movement and rejuvenate classical liberal ideas in the land that helped give them life. Given that Scotland lacks the tools that even a U.S. state possesses to attract external investment, it’s little surprise that at times it’s been nothing but a laboratory for successive socialist experiments. With polls shifting increasingly towards a stunning victory for the secessionists, however, an opportunity for some free-market solutions might come sooner rather than later.

Arguably one of the most contentious debates surrounding independence has pertained to whether Scotland could retain use of Pound Sterling, a currency backed by the Bank of England. All the pro-Union parties have stated unequivocally that as part of the ‘price’ of independence, Scotland would forfeit its currency as part of a political divorce and would no longer be able to retain the use of it. Scotland retaining the pound was also widely dismissed by financier George Soros — the man who helped break the Bank of England over 20 years ago.

As the media lapped up this line without any questions asked, the London-based libertarian think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, noted how Scotland using “pound outside of a currency union would have a more stable financial system and economy than it has now or than a currency union could provide.” But rather than spiraling towards third world status, Scotland’s inability “to print money and establish a central bank to act as a lender of last resort” would actually help reduce “moral hazard within the financial system” and incentivize banks “to be prudent, significantly improving the overall quality of the country’s financial institutions.”

One could also say the same of government.