Purgatory 2022: How do you think politics and society should work?
TurquoiseTastic
Kerygmania Host
"The Jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but (what was more important) the system he would not rebel against, the system he would trust". (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy).
A common theme on many Purgatory threads is what a number of Shipmates regard as the intrinsic wrongness of a capitalist society. (Personally I do not agree with this; I want a government-ameliorated market economy; I would vote for Tony Blair in a heartbeat). I would be interested to know along what lines Shipmates would like to see society / economics / politics run. Any offers?
A common theme on many Purgatory threads is what a number of Shipmates regard as the intrinsic wrongness of a capitalist society. (Personally I do not agree with this; I want a government-ameliorated market economy; I would vote for Tony Blair in a heartbeat). I would be interested to know along what lines Shipmates would like to see society / economics / politics run. Any offers?
Comments
Politically, I would like to see the House of Lords replaced an elected advisory body. I have various ideas for the details but the important thing is elected.
UBI. Much simpler to administer than all the many benefits that currently exist.
Re-establishment of a sufficient stock of social housing.
Rebalancing of opportunities from the SE and London across the rest of the country.
Those'd be my starting points.
Why?
But you do agree with the bits you have placed in bold type, am I right?
OK - fair enough - let's frame some then!
I didn't have that specific thought in mind with my list, but I like to think they'd benefit me wherever in that society I'd be placed.
Actually, I think I'd add *Health Provision* to the list of nationalised essentials, though I suppose the already-existing NHS (or what's left of it) counts.
Yes, that one we already had so I didn't add it. I should have, along with education
Education as well - no more Etons, please!
State provision doesn't preclude private provision. Absolute first step there is to remove tax breaks for independent schools. No excuse for that.
In general agreement so far. Selling off the utilities, post office and rail have been less than successful. We are soon seeing stamps with a use by date. No more buying loads at the cheap price before they go up. Good or bad? I am unsure
Do we get to keep our knowledge, intelligence and skills though?
No, for the purpose of the thought experiment you don't know where you'll end up in society or what your personal circumstances and social circumstances will be: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/
In which case it's a meaningless concept as without the sum of my knowledge, intelligence and skills I wouldn't be me in the first place.
The point of the thought experiment is, ISTM, to force people to agree that everyone should be treated fairly. The point of my question is to clarify that treating everyone fairly doesn't have to mean they will all get the same outcome, because some people are simply more intelligent, more skilled, and just better than others. I believe in equality of opportunity, and a society where the best can rise to the top regardless of where they start from. Would I, as me, be happy living in such a society even if I didn't know where I'd be born in it? Yes - because I'd be confident that my abilities would propel me to the appropriate level. Would I, as someone with no or minimal abilities, be happy living in such a society? No - but then I wouldn't be happy living as someone with no or minimal abilities in any society.
How do we get there?
I have no philosophical problem with everyone being guaranteed a minimum standard of living even if they are unable to earn it for themselves. But everyone should also be free to earn as much improvement on that minimum standard as they are able and/or willling.
Too expensive and unproductive.
Let's say that UBI was £200 per week. The poorest would get just £200. Everyone else would get £200 plus their wages/pension etc
The poorest would be even poorer.
Far better to target benefits to those than need them
Part of UBI is using the tax system to progressively claw it back from people who don't need it. Once someone's on a predetermined level of income they'd be no better off as a result of the UBI because of this factor.
Yes. Especially the bold bits
It's a petty vindictive policy.
State funded schools have massive financial benefits. They are funded by the state
Spending per pupil is massively higher in independent schools than it is in the State sector; to call their funding a "financial advantage" is risible. But perhaps we can narrow the gap a bit using the increased tax take from the independents. Or even better get rid of the independent sector entirely. It'd be interesting to see how the rich use their money with regard to the state sector if they had to use it.
Every pupil in the independant school is one less pupil in the state system. Bear in mind that the parents of these pupils also pay taxes to pay for the state system.
Every pupil in the independent sector is one being bought an advantage over those in the State schools. Just think how much better those state schools could be if the total UK spend on education were spread fairly across all children instead of concentrated on the richest few per cent through the independent sector.
Do you really think that removing charity status from independent schools would make a significant diffence to the amount of money available to state schools ? I don't.
There are some unfair advantages we can easily do something about. That there are others harder to sort out shouldn't deter us. This is the same sort of ridiculous logic that says watching videos on smartphones while driving should be legal because having children in the car can also be distracting and no-one wants to ban them
It's a start, while we work on abolition. And the comment you're replying to was made in the context of abolition, not mere removal of tax status.
There will still be a need for some benefits - in particular to support those who are ill or disabled who have extra expenses.
At the extremes sure; if you were a different person you'd be a different person, but we've all lived through different stages in life and some of will experience impairments of various kinds both physical and mental, both voluntary (intoxication) and otherwise (diseases of old age) while remaining definitely ourselves. It's should be possible to imagine ourselves born in different circumstances, especially if we have a diverse extended family, similarly if we have children who take after us to any degree, it can be easier to imagine how we could be somewhat different to how we are now while being still being 'ourselves'. Rawls himself wants us to use the scenario as a device of representation to reason about morality rather than get overly hung up on particulars.
Moving beyond the philosophical, the golden rule only really works if we are able to at least functionally treat others as equal of consideration of ourselves, and so I can see an argument for why Christian morality should go at least as far as Rawls.
It's fairly easy to look this up. The taxable exemptions amount to around 6% of the budget for state education. That's a reasonable increase.
One disadvantage of targeted benefits is that they're invidious. People who don't receive them look down on and resent those who do. UBI means everyone knows how much people who just have UBI have to live on.
The other disadvantage is that targeted benefits means people on low pay face a high rate of marginal taxation. If they lose ten pounds of benefit payment for every two pounds of salary they're effectively being taxed above the current top rate.
Finally, UBI saves much of the administrative costs of checking eligibility especially for people whose employment is episodic meaning that they come in and out of work.
Yes: paying UBI to everyone means you need to put up the tax rate so the richest will be less well off overall. That's alright
And that also assumes that there is no knock on effect on willingness to increase taxation to fund education if opting out becomes more expensive.
I agree with most of this, adding good healthcare and education as others have mentioned.
I would drastically reduce the number of people in the House of Lords, and I would stop the practice of it being used as a reward, but I would keep it away from elections - we haven’t got democracy right ref the House of Commons yet. Rather, there would be an independent panel to monitor it - to kick out ‘dead wood’ people who don’t contribute, and to make sure that there is a balance of talents.
I don’t know what might be done about people who don’t pay their rent or utility bills - would there need to be ‘homeless pods’ with the basics provided for free too?
It's not the money. It's the... what's that concept again?
Everyone's entitled to the best free public healthcare, the best free public education that exponential tax and rent can buy. They are entitled to the best social housing and its construction, utilities, sustainable energy, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining, transport infrastructure and public transport that that same basket can invest in. Private shares in the commons of any kind must be taxed exponentially according to how they don't benefit the common good. Grouse moors. Good farmers will be better off. That's fairer than nationalizing without compensation, which would be fully morally justified regardless, but would lead to a crisis of capitalism. I like the idea of truly universal benefit, taxed according to wealth and all other income. Rent and tax and their investment would have local input.
Come on @Crœsos @Martin54 @quetzalcoatl @Caissa @chrisstiles ! If Marx's solutions "haven't worked" surely we can do better! I have an increasing amount of time for Marx's diagnostic abilities, so let's see if we can do "treatment" better than Lenin and pals!
In respect of Independant schools I very much favour the status quo.
Strongly disagree. As someone has said, I may be stripped of all these at some point in my life. Yet that indignity will still be happening to me.
Sometimes I wonder about that verse about "storing up treasure in heaven". As far as I can see the treasures of our learning, experience, abilities, are all down here on earth where the moth and rust destroy. We can't take them with us. But maybe that's another thread...
I'm sure you do. But I've given reasons for what I think.
The apparent paucity of ambition is both linked to where we are economically, and partially reflective of the programs that would be required to rebuild trust and support for further reform. The triumph of the last few decades has been to create a situation where it is automatically assumed that the state cannot administer large programs and investments, and challenging that as common sense is a large part of the task towards more radical changes.
So, sorry. There are no "recipes for the cook shops of the future". At least at this point.
At the same time I think you are underestimating the effect of UBI (and universal services) - freeing people from the need to work to survive would have a huge impact in terms a basic floor on the benefits that capital would have to offer.
It also, perhaps ironically, can stimulate enterprise. Am I more likely to risk starting a business in an environment where if it goes tits up I still have a roof over my head and food in the cupboard, or one where I risk being homeless and destitute?
Come on! Dream a little! "You've got to have a dream... if you don't have a dream... How ya gonna have a dream come true?????" (South Pacific).
Yes! Yes I do see that. How much UBI do you think would be necessary for that?