Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has called for a return to "hard work", saying decades of socialism have dampened the capacity for enterprise.

Ms Davidson described her vision in a speech to party members, setting out how she hopes to revive Tory fortunes.

She said: "My vision for Scotland is a positive one.

"We are a resourceful people, responsible for many of the world's greatest inventions. Our ingenuity and endurance has built business empires and spread commerce across the globe.

"Decades of socialism have dampened our natural capacity for enterprise and hard work, but the flame still burns.

"We can rise again if we learn from recent events and decide that we are determined to make Scotland work."

The 32-year-old, who only won a seat at the Scottish Parliament at the Holyrood election in May, is the first overall leader of the party north of the border. She took over from former leader Annabel Goldie in November.

In her speech in Glasgow, Ms Davidson said the party had struggled to get its message across to voters for too long.

The Conservatives failed to make significant headway at elections since Tony Blair swept to power in the 1997 general election which wiped the Tories from the parliamentary map in Scotland.

At the Holyrood election in May last year, the party lost two seats, leaving a group of 15 out of the total 129 MSPs.

Ms Davidson said: "Our purpose is to decisively shift the balance of power from the hands of politicians into the hands of people and local communities.

"We believe in people, not in the state, and we believe that the bigger the size of the state, the smaller the role left for the individual citizen."

Describing her speech as the first of several "values statements", she focused on the economy.

Ms Davidson said Scotland had been part of a "collective delusion" where people bought into a fantasy based on debt.

She said Scots will have to ask the "profound question" about what country they want, using Greece as an example to avoid and Germany as an example to follow.

"I believe that there is only one way for Scotland to be at ease with itself," she said.

"We must return to the principle that made us great. If we want to prosper, we have to work for it, as our forefathers did.

"Scots are not afraid of hard work. And we know in our guts that if something is too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

"The something-for-nothing society is over. Nobody who is able to work should be allowed by choice to live off the rest of us without contributing.

"To those who would claim that I am offering a miserable vision of the future, I say this: we've had a lucky escape. If Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats had had their way, Britain would have joined the euro 10 years ago and Scotland would now be in the grip of an unparalleled crisis.

"If David Cameron had not become Prime Minister and formed a government pledging to live within its means, the markets would have inflicted the same fate on us as is befalling Italy and Spain.

"If Alex Salmond had succeeded in tearing Scotland out of the UK, our economy would have been buffeted and destabilised just as the economies of so many other small nations have been."

She also highlighted changes to the party, pledging to "professionalise" the organisation with a new candidates list, funding structure and a broader base of supporters.

SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson said: "At the elections in May, Ruth Davidson came a distant fourth in the seat she contested and her deputy Jackson Carlaw failed to gain the Tories' top target seat.

"Perhaps it's time the Tories stopped making laughable claims and issuing vague statements on values and instead took the advice of the erstwhile leadership contender Murdo Fraser and disbanded the party altogether."

A Scottish Labour spokesman said: "Ruth Davidson claims to represent a fresh face for Scottish Conservatism but the reality is this is the same old Tories.

"The people of Scotland stopped listening to their tired rhetoric over the public sector and Europe a long time ago."