The thing is, knowing that the world has (some) people in it who are simply exploiters is usually the drive for labour to organise so that the exploited can stop themselves from being picked on and demand better wages and conditions.
Marvin seems to have not taken this valuable lesson to heart.
I’ve been a union member for over a decade, a caseworker supporting others with their issues for five or six years, and the local branch treasurer for three.
ETA: I’ve also not voted Conservative for over a decade. And the Ship has been a large part of my political movement over that time.
I’ve been a union member for over a decade, a caseworker supporting others with their issues for five or six years, and the local branch treasurer for three.
ETA: I’ve also not voted Conservative for over a decade. And the Ship has been a large part of my political movement over that time.
I remembered this about you. Which is why I have such difficulties in squaring what you say you believe and how you say you behave.
And it's certainly not thinking that people are intrinsically good. Socialism and unionism wouldn't exist if employers could be trusted to share the company's profits with the workers, and treat them with dignity and respect. Socialism acknowledges people are bastards. What it doesn't do is embrace that as some kind of virtue.
The world is full of people who just want to use me (and everyone else) for their own ends. Why should I trust them?
Even if this were true; your current problems would be caused by those who are rich and powerful, not by those who aren't.
I don’t trust the rich either.
The rich and powerful don't give two hoots whether you trust them or not, they already have power over you. That you don't trust anyone (apparently) enough to ally with them to work towards a just society -- that's interesting to them in aggregate.
I think you'd be hard pressed to struggle against the world on your own (and in fact you don't anyway).
Scientific research shows that in times of major crisis people tend to cooperate together. As we have seen, for example, during this pandemic. Seeing everyone else as a rival is not an accurate representation of how most large groups of humans actually function.
There’s a fundamental difference between cooperating with a group where you all know each other and cooperating with a group the size of most modern countries. Problems start when you extrapolate from the former to the latter.
To me, “you cooperate with your friends, so why not with the whole country/world” is on a par with saying “you have sex with your wife, so why not with the whole country/world”.
You making a promise to be unco-operative with anyone who isn't your friend would certainly explain a lot.
The thing is, knowing that the world has (some) people in it who are simply exploiters is usually the drive for labour to organise so that the exploited can stop themselves from being picked on and demand better wages and conditions.
Marvin seems to have not taken this valuable lesson to heart.
I’ve been a union member for over a decade, a caseworker supporting others with their issues for five or six years, and the local branch treasurer for three.
Among all these people you've been working with and for in your union activities, have you found that a large fraction of them just want to use you (and everyone else) for their own ends? Would you say that you are just trying to use them (and everyone else) for your own ends?
The thing is, knowing that the world has (some) people in it who are simply exploiters is usually the drive for labour to organise so that the exploited can stop themselves from being picked on and demand better wages and conditions.
Marvin seems to have not taken this valuable lesson to heart.
I’ve been a union member for over a decade, a caseworker supporting others with their issues for five or six years, and the local branch treasurer for three.
Among all these people you've been working with and for in your union activities, have you found that a large fraction of them just want to use you (and everyone else) for their own ends?
Yes, actually. For a large fraction of my branch the union is little more than an insurance policy, providing assistance and protection in case they get into trouble with the boss.
Would you say that you are just trying to use them (and everyone else) for your own ends?
To a degree, perhaps. I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t getting something in return.
The thing is, knowing that the world has (some) people in it who are simply exploiters is usually the drive for labour to organise so that the exploited can stop themselves from being picked on and demand better wages and conditions.
Marvin seems to have not taken this valuable lesson to heart.
I’ve been a union member for over a decade, a caseworker supporting others with their issues for five or six years, and the local branch treasurer for three.
Among all these people you've been working with and for in your union activities, have you found that a large fraction of them just want to use you (and everyone else) for their own ends?
Yes, actually. For a large fraction of my branch the union is little more than an insurance policy, providing assistance and protection in case they get into trouble with the boss.
Would you say that you are just trying to use them (and everyone else) for your own ends?
To a degree, perhaps. I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t getting something in return.
All those people are just trying to fuck you over?
If memory serves, I did once ask a Martian of this Parish, given that it had been suggested that wealthier left-wingers were "champagne socialists" and poor ones were envious, who could argue for a more socially just redistribution of wealth.
The answer was "no-one".
The question "are you a virgin ?" may be relevant from a doctor or a lover, but from your neighbour is impertinent and intrusive and disrespectful.
Similarly, the question "how much wealth do you own ?" may be relevant from a mortgage broker if I'm applying for a loan, or from a financial advisor I'm consulting, but from my neighbour is impertinent and intrusive and disrespectful.
In both cases, the answer is "mind your own effing business".
So who has the standing to ask that question for the purpose of deciding whether how much or how little I have is "fair" ?
The answer is "no-one".
This is merely a social construct. There's nothing intrinsic in deciding we aren't allowed to know how much money people have.
The world is full of people who just want to use me (and everyone else) for their own ends. Why should I trust them?
An experiment was run to test whether taxi drivers would take advantage of a situation where they could be dishonest with a passenger and get away with it. The 'passenger' being a researcher deliberately setting up this situation.
What happened with nearly every taxi driver was that they didn't take advantage of the situation, and rescued the passenger from their own supposed foolishness, but then warned the passenger that most other taxi drivers were crooks.
Lots of people believe the world is full of people who just want to take advantage of everyone. As others have said, research does not bear this out.
A common endeavour is a shared one, not one imposed.
You mean that an activity funded by general taxation cannot be described as a common endeavour, because it is imposed ?
So all the socialist talk of co-operation and common endeavour is just so much bullshit because we know that the bottom line is that they want the taxpayers to fund it ?
your current problems would be caused by those who are rich and powerful, not by those who aren't.
Actually my current problems are caused by those who are powerful because they control the state, and how rich they are has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Socialism doesn't seem to advocate a world in which the amount of power that people have over each other is minimised. It seems to advocate a world in which those who control the state exercise more power over people.
Democratic socialism merely adds the qualification that those people should be democratically elected.
your current problems would be caused by those who are rich and powerful, not by those who aren't.
Actually my current problems are caused by those who are powerful because they control the state, and how rich they are has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Socialism doesn't seem to advocate a world in which the amount of power that people have over each other is minimised. It seems to advocate a world in which those who control the state exercise more power over people.
Democratic socialism merely adds the qualification that those people should be democratically elected.
Well, this isn't even wrong either.
Firstly, you'd have to live under a rock to assert with any kind of straight face that wealth has nothing to do with controlling the state. *stares at front bench made up of millionaires*
Secondly, socialism is partly about maximizing the number of people who get to say how things are run. Democratic elections are obviously part of that, but so is democratic control of utilities, and worker-control of private companies.
And the third point, from the post above, is that Russ seems to thing 'socialists' are somehow not taxpayers. Socialists are (as evident from this thread) more than willing to pay more tax if it means better services for the less well off.
But of course socialism isn't about the obsolescence of the state. That's communism.
Actually my current problems are caused by those who are powerful because they control the state, and how rich they are has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
That's basically deluded.
Whether it's actual corruption or just 'the way things work' is a matter of degrees and we could have a meaningful discussion on where you draw that line. However the idea that real power doesn't lie with the rich is unbelievably ridiculous.
It is evident in so many ways but the most prominent one is multinational companies who pressure governments into lower tax rates by playing one jurisdiction against another.
If you want to get serious about it, it is a huge list of policy positions that are constantly being nudged by the rich to favour themselves. Austerity is a big one - partly because it protected asset prices but mostly because of the myth that it had to be done with cuts and not tax rises. One of the earliest casualties of Osborne's folly was public health. Can you imagine how the UK might have managed the pandemic if PH had not been decimated? I can.
I think it's Warren Buffet who said it best (forgive me if I have got the attribution wrong): of course there's a class war; it's being waged by the rich against everyone else.
Actually my current problems are caused by those who are powerful because they control the state, and how rich they are has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
That's basically deluded.
No. I live in the police state that it is the Republic of Ireland. Church services are banned. If I drive to town I'm likely to be stopped by the police demanding to know my reason for travel. And the friendly builder who lives at the end of the lane won't come and work on my house because he's afraid of being reported and fined for illegal construction work.
But it is at least possible that all these things are temporary, and I don't want to divert the thread to discussion of covid.
Whether it's actual corruption or just 'the way things work' is a matter of degrees and we could have a meaningful discussion on where you draw that line. However the idea that real power doesn't lie with the rich is unbelievably ridiculous.
It is evident in so many ways but the most prominent one is multinational companies who pressure governments into lower tax rates by playing one jurisdiction against another.
Yes the chief executives of multinational companies hold great power. Yes they're very rich. Would they hold less power if they were less rich ? No, the multinational company would still be run by someone (or a small group of someones).
Ditto front bench politicians.
Yes, newspaper proprietors hold considerable power. Yes, they're very rich. We could talk about whether people getting their news from social media is a better system, but again that's for another thread. If the rich didn't own the newspaper, someone else would. The ordinary person would have no more power over their own existence as a result.
But all this is about the uber-wealthy. The people who've a Bentley for everyday and a Ferrari for the weekends.
Even if only from the evidence of this thread, socialists are into stirring up hate and envy of the uber-wealthy, seeing them as a "class".
Another way of looking at them is that they're just the tip of a distribution. And in between are all those who drive Range Rovers and Jaguars. All the way down to people like me in a third-hand Ford that's well into its second decade. And on down to the poorest who can't afford a car at all.
The Ferrari set are a distraction. A totem of what socialists dislike. When what they want to do is to drag everyone down to using the bus.
However, I will pick up a couple of things. In your post, you describe the symbiosis that exists between wealth and power. Wealth leads to power; power can be used to increase wealth. And round and round it goes. You describe that relationship and then state that power has nothing to do with wealth.
So what are we left with? Just a strawman again about a class war. I believe I made reference to that in my earlier post.
Actually my current problems are caused by those who are powerful because they control the state, and how rich they are has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
That's basically deluded.
No. I live in the police state that it is the Republic of Ireland. Church services are banned. If I drive to town I'm likely to be stopped by the police demanding to know my reason for travel. And the friendly builder who lives at the end of the lane won't come and work on my house because he's afraid of being reported and fined for illegal construction work.
But it is at least possible that all these things are temporary, and I don't want to divert the thread to discussion of covid.
Oh for crying out loud. I'm sorry, but this is really pathetic. And you don't get away with it just by saying you don't want to divert the thread. Drive-by shootings are not acceptable.
Millions of people have died over the past year from the thing you don't want to discuss while complaining. Your life has been disrupted to keep that number down. Get over it.
Moreover, the rich almost universally wanted fewer or no restrictions at all.
It was the vast mass of people, poor and middle income, who revolted and stayed at home, refusing to be the cattle in the oligarchy's herd immunity plan. Any poll will tell you that the majority think the restrictions were brought in too late and not hard enough.
Why? Because they thought their lives were worth more than some rich man's profits.
Nicely put @orfeo and @Doc Tor I completely agree with both. I was thinking of posting something similar to what the good Doc Tor wrote but decided to leave it for the moment - my views on the management of Covid-19 are well-documented elsewhere. However, you put it clearly and succinctly, thank you.
In your post, you describe the symbiosis that exists between wealth and power. Wealth leads to power; power can be used to increase wealth. And round and round it goes. You describe that relationship and then state that power has nothing to do with wealth.
Not really.
I agreed with you - it's true that the uber-wealthy have power as a result of their wealth. At least partly because as you've said elsewhere, advertising works. If you can afford to pay to get your views published, you will influence people.
And the rich also gain more wealth as a result of their wealth - money makes money. That's true too.
I'm not saying there's no relationship.
I'm saying firstly that questions of freedom and autonomy - how much power people have over their own lives - are more important than questions of who wields whatever power-over-others exists.
And secondly, that whatever power accrues to the uber-wealthy does not proportionately accrue to the merely-wealthier-than-average.
Your or my assets could be multiplied by a factor of 2 or more without any significant increase in our power-over-others.
So that it is an act of misdirection for socialists to bang on about billionaires if what they want to do is to increase tax and government control on the middle class.
The majority of wealthy people grossly underestimate the percentile of their wealth and perceive themselves as 'middle class'.
I can't remember the exact figures, but some absurdly large proportion of the population perceive themselves as average income/middle class. So self-identification as such is not a good guide to reality. We can't all be in the middle.
So that it is an act of misdirection for socialists to bang on about billionaires if what they want to do is to increase tax and government control on the middle class.
Its employer claims it's a private contractor so it doesn't get the minimum wage or overtime, and the employer claims the right to control its sexlife and the opinions it expresses in public. Unless they're right-wing opinions, because then that would be an unacceptable limit on its freedom of expression.
Quite so, but a high proportion of the population are close to the median, which is why the middle ground in economic terms is so politically critical.
Quite so, but a high proportion of the population are close to the median, which is why the middle ground in economic terms is so politically critical.
Well now. You've been careful to pick the median, because that's what the 'middle person's income is. If you'd picked the mean income, roughly 65% of people earn less than that. The mode income is only ~£20,000, and still 25-30% of the population manage to earn that or less.
To summarise: income is very much more unevenly distributed that you appear to believe.
Quite so, but a high proportion of the population are close to the median, which is why the middle ground in economic terms is so politically critical.
Actually, my point is that a high proportion of the population believe they're in the middle, regardless of whether they actually are, which is why it's so politically critical.
So that it is an act of misdirection for socialists to bang on about billionaires if what they want to do is to increase tax and government control on the middle class.
That 'if' is working really hard today.
Are you seriously denying that you'd raise taxes on the middle class ?
The graph you linked to shows roughly about 5% of households with an income below 10K and roughly about 5% of households with an income above 80K and 90% in between.
My point is that the income distribution of that 90% and the power and wealth of newspaper magnates and CEOs of multinationals seem so far apart that it's verging on the dishonest to use one as an argument for the other.
Suppose socialists want to redistribute wealth to the point that wealth rises linearly: the 90% percentile have nine times the wealth of the 10% percentile. (I'm leaving out minimum income to make the maths easier.) In such a society the top 10% have 20% of the wealth. In our society the top 10% have 40% of the wealth, which can be modelled by a quartic curve (fourth power). Redistributing wealth to get from one to the other means that the break even point is 73%: just under three quarters of the people would be better off.
Including a minimum income of half the median income shifts the break even point down slightly to about 69% of people being better off (by estimation: it's possible to solve quartic equations exactly but I'd have to look up how and I expect it's a pain).
That said, if wealth were distributed according to a quartic, the top 1% would have 5% of the wealth, and they actually have somewhere between 12% and 17% of the wealth.
So that it is an act of misdirection for socialists to bang on about billionaires if what they want to do is to increase tax and government control on the middle class.
That 'if' is working really hard today.
Are you seriously denying that you'd raise taxes on the middle class ?
The graph you linked to shows roughly about 5% of households with an income below 10K and roughly about 5% of households with an income above 80K and 90% in between.
There is, of course, no real consensus on what constitutes "middle class", but to define it as 90% of the population would seem to be pushing the value of using the term at all. At the very least to be useful you need to sub-divide that into probably at least three categories. That's assuming you make that class division based on income (and, class is a more encompassing concept than just income).
But, if for simplicity we stick with income and the household income plot that was linked to earlier. There's a rule of thumb which is that your housing costs (rent or mortgage) should be no more than 30% of your disposable income in order to comfortably be able to pay other bills, buy food etc then that puts a threshold of "not enough income" at 12xmonthly rent (say between £500 and £1000 depending on where you are in the country, for a 2 bed flat that would be the minimum needed for a couple with a child) - that gives that threshold at about £20,000 household income (more in areas with the higher housing costs), on that plot that puts about 15% of the population at below the point where income is sufficient to afford the basics of decent housing with enough to pay for other necessities of life - let's call this group "the poor" (other measures of poverty which take into account of facts like the availability of decent lower-cost housing is limited, ie: people are often forced into paying more for housing than they should, puts that at 20-25% of people being poor - and simple measures like building thousands of new publicly owned quality homes with affordable rents would lift a lot of people out of poverty). Above that income group there are the people who have enough income, but on a marginal rate such that a sudden loss of income (unemployment, or severe reduction in hours) or expense (need to replace expensive item like a car or house repairs) would leave them struggling - I'll borrow Theresa May's label "Just About Managing". I'd say this overlaps a bit with that larger definition of poor (ie: the difference between 15% and 25%) and extends a bit further up the income scale. So, let's for the sake of argument without too much controversy say that the poor and JAMs make up the lower 30% of the income distribution - and, equally without controversy IMO that these are the people we want to concentrate on helping by lifting their income (eg: raising minimum wages, providing assurance of hours of employment rather than gig/zero-hour, and particularly relevant to the point you were making cutting taxes) and/or cutting expenses (eg: by providing the aforementioned publicly owned housing, or the earlier much discussed provision of affordable quality public transport so they don't need the expense of a car).
That's a lower income group, what about an upper income group? There's a reasonable argument for defining too little income, how much income is "too much"? I'm going to admit that that's a much harder question to answer. What counts as essential expenditure, and how much is a reasonable amount to save for a rainy day? Let's take a stab at this ... start with what would it take to pay off a mortgage on a decent house in 20y, let's say £250,000 with 10% interest - that would be a bit under £3,000 per month, put in that 30% of income on housing we used earlier and you get a £10000 per month household income, or £60,000 per annum for two incomes. Which is the top 10% on that plot. You may prefer "comfortably well off" rather than "rich", but these are the people who can easily afford to pay a wee bit more in tax to support lifting the lower 30% upwards, the 10% between £50,000 and £60,000 are unlikely to struggle, they may need to take a few more years to pay off the mortgage is all, so let's make the top 20% as the higher income band. Which gives a middle income band that's now 50% of the population, which could still be sub-divided a bit but is more useful than a 90% group.
So, based on the national average incomes and average costs we have a lower 30% band <£23,000, an upper 20% band >£50,000 and a middle band in between. There are regional variations in costs (particularly housing), so these bands will move regionally. Within that middle band there's a lower end where a bit more money at the end of each month would be very useful, and an upper end where a bit less wouldn't be too big a problem. I would support a revision of tax bands are rates such that the poorer pay less and the richer more, which would be more tax paid by the upper part of that middle band. Setting that so that the median income is unaffected and the people above that pay progressively more (and those below progressively less) wouldn't seem too far off appropriate. I'd also favour this to be regionally based to account for the differences in costs regionally (that could be devolution of tax raising power a la the Scottish Parliament - but, a generally reduction in national income tax to be supplemented by income tax raised by local authorities with bands and rates to suit their local situation may be politically more acceptable as it doesn't require development of devolved regional governments within England).
All of which just briefly addresses the "increase tax on the middle class" part of your conditional assumption of what (some) socialists believe (and, I'm only speaking for myself). The "government control of the middle classes" isn't covered at all, that's a whole different kettle of fish - and, personally I'm happier with a democratically elected government having more control than the current situation where unelected private corporations have that control.
That's a lower income group, what about an upper income group? There's a reasonable argument for defining too little income, how much income is "too much"? I'm going to admit that that's a much harder question to answer. What counts as essential expenditure, and how much is a reasonable amount to save for a rainy day? Let's take a stab at this ... start with what would it take to pay off a mortgage on a decent house in 20y, let's say £250,000 with 10% interest - that would be a bit under £3,000 per month, put in that 30% of income on housing we used earlier and you get a £10000 per month household income, or £60,000 per annum for two incomes. Which is the top 10% on that plot. You may prefer "comfortably well off" rather than "rich", but these are the people who can easily afford to pay a wee bit more in tax to support lifting the lower 30% upwards, the 10% between £50,000 and £60,000 are unlikely to struggle, they may need to take a few more years to pay off the mortgage is all, so let's make the top 20% as the higher income band. Which gives a middle income band that's now 50% of the population, which could still be sub-divided a bit but is more useful than a 90% group.
Are those numbers total household income, individual salary, or a confusing mix of the two? There's a difference between a household with two people who earn £30,000 and a household with one person who earns £60,000, especially if you're only going to tax the latter at a higher rate.
I'm also interested to know what you would consider to be "a wee bit more tax". 1%? 10%?
Russ' concern for freedom has only ever meant freedom to do things in accordance with Russ' political views.
He's hardly alone in that.
Possibly. I find myself often surprised at how people don't countenance any kind of self-sacrifice for the sake of others. But then I also often come to the conclusion that I'm just weird.
Russ' concern for freedom has only ever meant freedom to do things in accordance with Russ' political views.
He's hardly alone in that.
Possibly.
Definitely. You only have to look back over this thread to see a whole host of people who think people should be less free to do things that aren't in accordance with their political beliefs.
I find myself often surprised at how people don't countenance any kind of self-sacrifice for the sake of others.
It depends which others. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for my family, a little less for my friends, less again for acquaintances, then neighbours, then those in the local area, and so forth. The wider the description of "others" becomes the less inclined I am to make sacrifices for them, to the point that someone I've never heard of living in some remote nation on the other side of the world isn't worth any sacrifice beyond maybe putting the odd penny in a collection tin every now and then.
I'd throw myself on a live grenade for my son. For some random person in Phontan, Laos I wouldn't even throw myself on a soft mattress unless I was already sleepy.
I'm sure this will have people queuing up to say what an awful person I am, but that's just the way it is.
But then I also often come to the conclusion that I'm just weird.
I often conclude that I'm some kind of sociopath. I've never really understood this idea that I should like everybody.
It depends which others. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for my family, a little less for my friends, less again for acquaintances, then neighbours, then those in the local area, and so forth. The wider the description of "others" becomes the less inclined I am to make sacrifices for them, to the point that someone I've never heard of living in some remote nation on the other side of the world isn't worth any sacrifice beyond maybe putting the odd penny in a collection tin every now and then.
Most people will see things that are immediately important to them and theirs as having a high priority. That's not unusual.
What is unusual is that you appear to go from "throw myself on a live grenade" to "not giving a single shit" about 2 yards from your door. I'm not going to comment on whether you're a sociopath or not. Simply that when Jesus asked us "who is my neighbour?" he expected a better answer than probably most of us are prepared to give.
That's a lower income group, what about an upper income group? There's a reasonable argument for defining too little income, how much income is "too much"? I'm going to admit that that's a much harder question to answer. What counts as essential expenditure, and how much is a reasonable amount to save for a rainy day? Let's take a stab at this ... start with what would it take to pay off a mortgage on a decent house in 20y, let's say £250,000 with 10% interest - that would be a bit under £3,000 per month, put in that 30% of income on housing we used earlier and you get a £10000 per month household income, or £60,000 per annum for two incomes. Which is the top 10% on that plot. You may prefer "comfortably well off" rather than "rich", but these are the people who can easily afford to pay a wee bit more in tax to support lifting the lower 30% upwards, the 10% between £50,000 and £60,000 are unlikely to struggle, they may need to take a few more years to pay off the mortgage is all, so let's make the top 20% as the higher income band. Which gives a middle income band that's now 50% of the population, which could still be sub-divided a bit but is more useful than a 90% group.
Are those numbers total household income, individual salary, or a confusing mix of the two? There's a difference between a household with two people who earn £30,000 and a household with one person who earns £60,000, especially if you're only going to tax the latter at a higher rate.
I thought I was trying to be clear ... obviously failed. So, for the £250,000 house over 20y the mortgage will be a bit under £3000 (there are various online calculators if you want to check that), so £10,000 per month on the 30% of household income on property concept. £120,000 per year - which is the £60,000 per person if there are two incomes (assuming approximately equal incomes etc). I don't think there'd be much difference in total tax paid if that was split £100k and £20k compared to an even split.
I'm also interested to know what you would consider to be "a wee bit more tax". 1%? 10%?
Part of the answer to that would be how much would be needed to provide what's needed to lift the lower paid to an acceptable standard of living. As an example, the changes in the Scottish tax rates were of 1% - it splits the 20% basic rate in three; a new starter rate band at 19% (£12500-£15000), a 20% basic rate (£15000-£25000) and a 21% intermediate band (£25000-£43000 - not the top of the UK basic band is £50,000); the higher band is 41% rather than 40% (£43,000-£150,000) and the top rate is 46% rather than 45%. [I admit the 1% is a bit off as income in the £43000-£50000 band is in the 41% band rather than 20%, which for that £7000 is a big step]. In practice this means <£26,000 income are marginally better off (at £15,000 that's an extra £21 - a 4% cut in tax), and small increases for moderate incomes (at £33k you'll pay £58 more- 1% extra). It hits the high earners a wee bit more (£1500 more on £50k, £3000 more on 200k - 4% extra). It's approximately revenue neutral (ie: the reductions in income tax from the poor are approximately matched by increased tax from the richer) and designed so that the "no difference point" was at approx. £26k (median Scottish income). IMO there's a flaw in the rebanding of the higher rate from >£50k to >£43k in that this hits people who earn close to £50k very hard (it's an extra 20%!) and would have preferred to see the top (>£150k) have a higher rate instead (though the income from that would be less because there are few earning >£150k). It would be better if the "upper middle class" £40k-£60k income band paid the 4% extra in tax and the "rich" >£100k were paying 10-20% more in tax rather than the way round it is. But, I guess that's what happens when a socialist minority in government seeks to push through tax reform when the majority party in government is funded by rich land owners and big business.
Of course, an extra £20 doesn't go very far for the lower paid and you'll need to do much better than that to make a significant difference through income tax alone - which is where cutting the extra costs of poverty are particularly important (extortionate private rents, public transport costs, utilities etc).
A rent cap is absolutely critical in all this. Currently, we have poor people who rent buying rich people yet another house, while not being able to afford their own.
IMO there's a flaw in the rebanding of the higher rate from >£50k to >£43k in that this hits people who earn close to £50k very hard (it's an extra 20%!) and would have preferred to see the top (>£150k) have a higher rate instead (though the income from that would be less because there are few earning >£150k).
I doubt the income would be much less; there may be few people earning above £150k, but they're earning a lot more money.
I'll note that saying it is an extra 20% is somewhat misleading: it's an extra 20% on the money over the tax band. You don't become worse off by going over the tax band in respect of tax (one might do so through removal of child support).
It depends which others. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for my family, a little less for my friends, less again for acquaintances, then neighbours, then those in the local area, and so forth. The wider the description of "others" becomes the less inclined I am to make sacrifices for them, to the point that someone I've never heard of living in some remote nation on the other side of the world isn't worth any sacrifice beyond maybe putting the odd penny in a collection tin every now and then.
If there's one thing a pandemic ought to have taught us, it's that the world is a great deal more interconnected than we sometimes realise.
IMO there's a flaw in the rebanding of the higher rate from >£50k to >£43k in that this hits people who earn close to £50k very hard (it's an extra 20%!) and would have preferred to see the top (>£150k) have a higher rate instead (though the income from that would be less because there are few earning >£150k).
I doubt the income would be much less; there may be few people earning above £150k, but they're earning a lot more money.
I'll note that saying it is an extra 20% is somewhat misleading: it's an extra 20% on the money over the tax band. You don't become worse off by going over the tax band in respect of tax (one might do so through removal of child support).
The extra 20% was in comparison to the same income in England, or in Scotland if the tax rates and bands hadn't been changed relative to the UK. In Scotland £50000 income would give an income tax bill of £9040 compared to £7500 in England - a difference of £1540, or 20% of the English tax. So, that's £1500 worse off than you would have been if the tax rates and bands hadn't changed.
I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for my family, a little less for my friends, less again for acquaintances, then neighbours, then those in the local area, and so forth. The wider the description of "others" becomes the less inclined I am to make sacrifices for them...
That seems to me entirely normal and human.
And the religion of love is about pushing those boundaries outward, about treating those in the outer circles of one's concern as if they were in the inner circles. Universal brotherhood etc.
And the countervailing force is about treating those nearby - your neighbours in the parish - as if they weren't people of your circle. People with ideas and wants of their own. But merely instances of a class - units of production whose lives can be re-ordered to suit one's own ideas.
Comments
I’ve been a union member for over a decade, a caseworker supporting others with their issues for five or six years, and the local branch treasurer for three.
ETA: I’ve also not voted Conservative for over a decade. And the Ship has been a large part of my political movement over that time.
I remembered this about you. Which is why I have such difficulties in squaring what you say you believe and how you say you behave.
And it's certainly not thinking that people are intrinsically good. Socialism and unionism wouldn't exist if employers could be trusted to share the company's profits with the workers, and treat them with dignity and respect. Socialism acknowledges people are bastards. What it doesn't do is embrace that as some kind of virtue.
The rich and powerful don't give two hoots whether you trust them or not, they already have power over you. That you don't trust anyone (apparently) enough to ally with them to work towards a just society -- that's interesting to them in aggregate.
I think you'd be hard pressed to struggle against the world on your own (and in fact you don't anyway).
You making a promise to be unco-operative with anyone who isn't your friend would certainly explain a lot.
Yes, actually. For a large fraction of my branch the union is little more than an insurance policy, providing assistance and protection in case they get into trouble with the boss.
To a degree, perhaps. I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t getting something in return.
This is merely a social construct. There's nothing intrinsic in deciding we aren't allowed to know how much money people have.
An experiment was run to test whether taxi drivers would take advantage of a situation where they could be dishonest with a passenger and get away with it. The 'passenger' being a researcher deliberately setting up this situation.
What happened with nearly every taxi driver was that they didn't take advantage of the situation, and rescued the passenger from their own supposed foolishness, but then warned the passenger that most other taxi drivers were crooks.
Lots of people believe the world is full of people who just want to take advantage of everyone. As others have said, research does not bear this out.
You mean that an activity funded by general taxation cannot be described as a common endeavour, because it is imposed ?
So all the socialist talk of co-operation and common endeavour is just so much bullshit because we know that the bottom line is that they want the taxpayers to fund it ?
Actually my current problems are caused by those who are powerful because they control the state, and how rich they are has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Socialism doesn't seem to advocate a world in which the amount of power that people have over each other is minimised. It seems to advocate a world in which those who control the state exercise more power over people.
Democratic socialism merely adds the qualification that those people should be democratically elected.
Well, this isn't even wrong either.
Firstly, you'd have to live under a rock to assert with any kind of straight face that wealth has nothing to do with controlling the state. *stares at front bench made up of millionaires*
Secondly, socialism is partly about maximizing the number of people who get to say how things are run. Democratic elections are obviously part of that, but so is democratic control of utilities, and worker-control of private companies.
And the third point, from the post above, is that Russ seems to thing 'socialists' are somehow not taxpayers. Socialists are (as evident from this thread) more than willing to pay more tax if it means better services for the less well off.
But of course socialism isn't about the obsolescence of the state. That's communism.
That's basically deluded.
Whether it's actual corruption or just 'the way things work' is a matter of degrees and we could have a meaningful discussion on where you draw that line. However the idea that real power doesn't lie with the rich is unbelievably ridiculous.
It is evident in so many ways but the most prominent one is multinational companies who pressure governments into lower tax rates by playing one jurisdiction against another.
If you want to get serious about it, it is a huge list of policy positions that are constantly being nudged by the rich to favour themselves. Austerity is a big one - partly because it protected asset prices but mostly because of the myth that it had to be done with cuts and not tax rises. One of the earliest casualties of Osborne's folly was public health. Can you imagine how the UK might have managed the pandemic if PH had not been decimated? I can.
I think it's Warren Buffet who said it best (forgive me if I have got the attribution wrong): of course there's a class war; it's being waged by the rich against everyone else.
AFZ
On the contrary. Leave whenever you want.
But it is at least possible that all these things are temporary, and I don't want to divert the thread to discussion of covid.
Yes the chief executives of multinational companies hold great power. Yes they're very rich. Would they hold less power if they were less rich ? No, the multinational company would still be run by someone (or a small group of someones).
Ditto front bench politicians.
Yes, newspaper proprietors hold considerable power. Yes, they're very rich. We could talk about whether people getting their news from social media is a better system, but again that's for another thread. If the rich didn't own the newspaper, someone else would. The ordinary person would have no more power over their own existence as a result.
But all this is about the uber-wealthy. The people who've a Bentley for everyday and a Ferrari for the weekends.
Even if only from the evidence of this thread, socialists are into stirring up hate and envy of the uber-wealthy, seeing them as a "class".
Another way of looking at them is that they're just the tip of a distribution. And in between are all those who drive Range Rovers and Jaguars. All the way down to people like me in a third-hand Ford that's well into its second decade. And on down to the poorest who can't afford a car at all.
The Ferrari set are a distraction. A totem of what socialists dislike. When what they want to do is to drag everyone down to using the bus.
As to the other thing? Of course there's a class war: it's perpetrated by the rich on the poor, and they're winning.
My response is mostly; What @Doc Tor said.
However, I will pick up a couple of things. In your post, you describe the symbiosis that exists between wealth and power. Wealth leads to power; power can be used to increase wealth. And round and round it goes. You describe that relationship and then state that power has nothing to do with wealth.
So what are we left with? Just a strawman again about a class war. I believe I made reference to that in my earlier post.
AFZ
Oh for crying out loud. I'm sorry, but this is really pathetic. And you don't get away with it just by saying you don't want to divert the thread. Drive-by shootings are not acceptable.
Millions of people have died over the past year from the thing you don't want to discuss while complaining. Your life has been disrupted to keep that number down. Get over it.
It was the vast mass of people, poor and middle income, who revolted and stayed at home, refusing to be the cattle in the oligarchy's herd immunity plan. Any poll will tell you that the majority think the restrictions were brought in too late and not hard enough.
Why? Because they thought their lives were worth more than some rich man's profits.
AFZ
Not really.
I agreed with you - it's true that the uber-wealthy have power as a result of their wealth. At least partly because as you've said elsewhere, advertising works. If you can afford to pay to get your views published, you will influence people.
And the rich also gain more wealth as a result of their wealth - money makes money. That's true too.
I'm not saying there's no relationship.
I'm saying firstly that questions of freedom and autonomy - how much power people have over their own lives - are more important than questions of who wields whatever power-over-others exists.
And secondly, that whatever power accrues to the uber-wealthy does not proportionately accrue to the merely-wealthier-than-average.
Your or my assets could be multiplied by a factor of 2 or more without any significant increase in our power-over-others.
So that it is an act of misdirection for socialists to bang on about billionaires if what they want to do is to increase tax and government control on the middle class.
I can't remember the exact figures, but some absurdly large proportion of the population perceive themselves as average income/middle class. So self-identification as such is not a good guide to reality. We can't all be in the middle.
That 'if' is working really hard today.
Quite so, but a high proportion of the population are close to the median, which is why the middle ground in economic terms is so politically critical.
Well now. You've been careful to pick the median, because that's what the 'middle person's income is. If you'd picked the mean income, roughly 65% of people earn less than that. The mode income is only ~£20,000, and still 25-30% of the population manage to earn that or less.
To summarise: income is very much more unevenly distributed that you appear to believe.
Thanks for the compliment. I do try to choose my words with care but don't always succeed.
Actually, my point is that a high proportion of the population believe they're in the middle, regardless of whether they actually are, which is why it's so politically critical.
Are you seriously denying that you'd raise taxes on the middle class ?
The graph you linked to shows roughly about 5% of households with an income below 10K and roughly about 5% of households with an income above 80K and 90% in between.
My point is that the income distribution of that 90% and the power and wealth of newspaper magnates and CEOs of multinationals seem so far apart that it's verging on the dishonest to use one as an argument for the other.
It's all about the scarecrows isn't it? Which given the thread title, is entirely appropriate.
AFZ
Suppose socialists want to redistribute wealth to the point that wealth rises linearly: the 90% percentile have nine times the wealth of the 10% percentile. (I'm leaving out minimum income to make the maths easier.) In such a society the top 10% have 20% of the wealth. In our society the top 10% have 40% of the wealth, which can be modelled by a quartic curve (fourth power). Redistributing wealth to get from one to the other means that the break even point is 73%: just under three quarters of the people would be better off.
Including a minimum income of half the median income shifts the break even point down slightly to about 69% of people being better off (by estimation: it's possible to solve quartic equations exactly but I'd have to look up how and I expect it's a pain).
That said, if wealth were distributed according to a quartic, the top 1% would have 5% of the wealth, and they actually have somewhere between 12% and 17% of the wealth.
But, if for simplicity we stick with income and the household income plot that was linked to earlier. There's a rule of thumb which is that your housing costs (rent or mortgage) should be no more than 30% of your disposable income in order to comfortably be able to pay other bills, buy food etc then that puts a threshold of "not enough income" at 12xmonthly rent (say between £500 and £1000 depending on where you are in the country, for a 2 bed flat that would be the minimum needed for a couple with a child) - that gives that threshold at about £20,000 household income (more in areas with the higher housing costs), on that plot that puts about 15% of the population at below the point where income is sufficient to afford the basics of decent housing with enough to pay for other necessities of life - let's call this group "the poor" (other measures of poverty which take into account of facts like the availability of decent lower-cost housing is limited, ie: people are often forced into paying more for housing than they should, puts that at 20-25% of people being poor - and simple measures like building thousands of new publicly owned quality homes with affordable rents would lift a lot of people out of poverty). Above that income group there are the people who have enough income, but on a marginal rate such that a sudden loss of income (unemployment, or severe reduction in hours) or expense (need to replace expensive item like a car or house repairs) would leave them struggling - I'll borrow Theresa May's label "Just About Managing". I'd say this overlaps a bit with that larger definition of poor (ie: the difference between 15% and 25%) and extends a bit further up the income scale. So, let's for the sake of argument without too much controversy say that the poor and JAMs make up the lower 30% of the income distribution - and, equally without controversy IMO that these are the people we want to concentrate on helping by lifting their income (eg: raising minimum wages, providing assurance of hours of employment rather than gig/zero-hour, and particularly relevant to the point you were making cutting taxes) and/or cutting expenses (eg: by providing the aforementioned publicly owned housing, or the earlier much discussed provision of affordable quality public transport so they don't need the expense of a car).
That's a lower income group, what about an upper income group? There's a reasonable argument for defining too little income, how much income is "too much"? I'm going to admit that that's a much harder question to answer. What counts as essential expenditure, and how much is a reasonable amount to save for a rainy day? Let's take a stab at this ... start with what would it take to pay off a mortgage on a decent house in 20y, let's say £250,000 with 10% interest - that would be a bit under £3,000 per month, put in that 30% of income on housing we used earlier and you get a £10000 per month household income, or £60,000 per annum for two incomes. Which is the top 10% on that plot. You may prefer "comfortably well off" rather than "rich", but these are the people who can easily afford to pay a wee bit more in tax to support lifting the lower 30% upwards, the 10% between £50,000 and £60,000 are unlikely to struggle, they may need to take a few more years to pay off the mortgage is all, so let's make the top 20% as the higher income band. Which gives a middle income band that's now 50% of the population, which could still be sub-divided a bit but is more useful than a 90% group.
So, based on the national average incomes and average costs we have a lower 30% band <£23,000, an upper 20% band >£50,000 and a middle band in between. There are regional variations in costs (particularly housing), so these bands will move regionally. Within that middle band there's a lower end where a bit more money at the end of each month would be very useful, and an upper end where a bit less wouldn't be too big a problem. I would support a revision of tax bands are rates such that the poorer pay less and the richer more, which would be more tax paid by the upper part of that middle band. Setting that so that the median income is unaffected and the people above that pay progressively more (and those below progressively less) wouldn't seem too far off appropriate. I'd also favour this to be regionally based to account for the differences in costs regionally (that could be devolution of tax raising power a la the Scottish Parliament - but, a generally reduction in national income tax to be supplemented by income tax raised by local authorities with bands and rates to suit their local situation may be politically more acceptable as it doesn't require development of devolved regional governments within England).
All of which just briefly addresses the "increase tax on the middle class" part of your conditional assumption of what (some) socialists believe (and, I'm only speaking for myself). The "government control of the middle classes" isn't covered at all, that's a whole different kettle of fish - and, personally I'm happier with a democratically elected government having more control than the current situation where unelected private corporations have that control.
Russ' concern for freedom has only ever meant freedom to do things in accordance with Russ' political views.
He's hardly alone in that.
Are those numbers total household income, individual salary, or a confusing mix of the two? There's a difference between a household with two people who earn £30,000 and a household with one person who earns £60,000, especially if you're only going to tax the latter at a higher rate.
I'm also interested to know what you would consider to be "a wee bit more tax". 1%? 10%?
Possibly. I find myself often surprised at how people don't countenance any kind of self-sacrifice for the sake of others. But then I also often come to the conclusion that I'm just weird.
Are we back at Popper's Intolerance Paradox again? We've dealt with that so many times before.
Definitely. You only have to look back over this thread to see a whole host of people who think people should be less free to do things that aren't in accordance with their political beliefs.
It depends which others. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for my family, a little less for my friends, less again for acquaintances, then neighbours, then those in the local area, and so forth. The wider the description of "others" becomes the less inclined I am to make sacrifices for them, to the point that someone I've never heard of living in some remote nation on the other side of the world isn't worth any sacrifice beyond maybe putting the odd penny in a collection tin every now and then.
I'd throw myself on a live grenade for my son. For some random person in Phontan, Laos I wouldn't even throw myself on a soft mattress unless I was already sleepy.
I'm sure this will have people queuing up to say what an awful person I am, but that's just the way it is.
I often conclude that I'm some kind of sociopath. I've never really understood this idea that I should like everybody.
Most people will see things that are immediately important to them and theirs as having a high priority. That's not unusual.
What is unusual is that you appear to go from "throw myself on a live grenade" to "not giving a single shit" about 2 yards from your door. I'm not going to comment on whether you're a sociopath or not. Simply that when Jesus asked us "who is my neighbour?" he expected a better answer than probably most of us are prepared to give.
Part of the answer to that would be how much would be needed to provide what's needed to lift the lower paid to an acceptable standard of living. As an example, the changes in the Scottish tax rates were of 1% - it splits the 20% basic rate in three; a new starter rate band at 19% (£12500-£15000), a 20% basic rate (£15000-£25000) and a 21% intermediate band (£25000-£43000 - not the top of the UK basic band is £50,000); the higher band is 41% rather than 40% (£43,000-£150,000) and the top rate is 46% rather than 45%. [I admit the 1% is a bit off as income in the £43000-£50000 band is in the 41% band rather than 20%, which for that £7000 is a big step]. In practice this means <£26,000 income are marginally better off (at £15,000 that's an extra £21 - a 4% cut in tax), and small increases for moderate incomes (at £33k you'll pay £58 more- 1% extra). It hits the high earners a wee bit more (£1500 more on £50k, £3000 more on 200k - 4% extra). It's approximately revenue neutral (ie: the reductions in income tax from the poor are approximately matched by increased tax from the richer) and designed so that the "no difference point" was at approx. £26k (median Scottish income). IMO there's a flaw in the rebanding of the higher rate from >£50k to >£43k in that this hits people who earn close to £50k very hard (it's an extra 20%!) and would have preferred to see the top (>£150k) have a higher rate instead (though the income from that would be less because there are few earning >£150k). It would be better if the "upper middle class" £40k-£60k income band paid the 4% extra in tax and the "rich" >£100k were paying 10-20% more in tax rather than the way round it is. But, I guess that's what happens when a socialist minority in government seeks to push through tax reform when the majority party in government is funded by rich land owners and big business.
Of course, an extra £20 doesn't go very far for the lower paid and you'll need to do much better than that to make a significant difference through income tax alone - which is where cutting the extra costs of poverty are particularly important (extortionate private rents, public transport costs, utilities etc).
I'll note that saying it is an extra 20% is somewhat misleading: it's an extra 20% on the money over the tax band. You don't become worse off by going over the tax band in respect of tax (one might do so through removal of child support).
If there's one thing a pandemic ought to have taught us, it's that the world is a great deal more interconnected than we sometimes realise.
That seems to me entirely normal and human.
And the religion of love is about pushing those boundaries outward, about treating those in the outer circles of one's concern as if they were in the inner circles. Universal brotherhood etc.
And the countervailing force is about treating those nearby - your neighbours in the parish - as if they weren't people of your circle. People with ideas and wants of their own. But merely instances of a class - units of production whose lives can be re-ordered to suit one's own ideas.
This isn't about self-sacrifice; it's about the power to sacrifice others.
It's not about what you'd give for a good cause. It's about what you'd use the power of the state to compel your neighbour to give for the same cause.