Ganesh -
I don't feel like a cow; I feel like a man living within a particular political system who contributes taxes towards that system, which includes the welfare state. I recognise my part of our collective societal responsibility (as an individual lucky enough to be born able-bodied and clear-minded, to non-abusive parents) to those less fortunate than myself, whose start in life has been less beneficial.
[shakes head] 
It's not a perfect system - like everyone, I would like to be paying fewer taxes, and feel that those who earn very much more than me should be paying more - but it makes me feel more 'human' than would a system which allowed its most vulnerable 2-10% to die where they fell.
Then we will have to agree to differ on this point Ganesh, because I believe that the present system itself rests upon an unacceptable blend of patronising (govt removal of personal judgement / responsibility) and predation (our economy comes at the cost of the third world, our own poor (the gap between rich and poor is growing) and our own dignity as men (not domesticated cattle – which is how we are being treated). I truly wish you could see this, but I understand why you cannot.
we're faced with somewhere between 2 and 10% of the population dying of starvation, exposure and disease; they have, as you've pointed out, nowhere to go. They may become desperate and boost the crime rate; they may simply become disease-ridden and boost the infection rate. Either way, how do we deal with the problem of a significant minority - many of whom are not physically mobile - clogging up our streets? Do we simply wait for them to curl up and die? Where do they go? How does one deal with this bloc of suffering, slowly dying humanity?
How they are dealt with is for each person / community to decide for themselves. It is not for ME to answer like some kind of a god-king-priest! My own preference, for those who are beyond the reach of a system of charity that respects both the giver and receiver, would be simply probably to exile them (which I understand means many will die, but it is not as certain as shooting them – this would at least give them the vaguest of chances to make a living elsewhere). And if you think that is an easy answer I respectfully suggest you have been staring at the monitor for too long! The alternative is far worse.
I have never claimed that the present system is a "utopia", nor have I called it "squeaky clean"; I have merely ventured that, in my opinion, it is preferable to a system which allows its most vulnerable sector to die, unsupported. It would be interesting to explore whether the bulk of profit gained by those 'screwing over' the Third World lines the coffers of the UK welfare system or the pockets of corporate CEOs - but that is another question for another thread.
Best left until the next issue of NI hits the ‘shelves’ 
Jonny Orr –
Personal. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Personal: based primarily on your own judgement and done directly, in person, as opposed to being based primarily on the management of others and/or done indirectly, through delegation or resignation.
You were asked. You elected a democratic government based it’s form and programme on the basis of taxation. You didn’t vote for them? Well ain’t democracy a bitch. You couldn’t find a party not predicated on taxation? Start one. See how far you can get with it. Simple.
The very fact that the majority of my life is lived under govt mandate, that is funded by MY work, via threat of force, to pay for that which I do not agree with, means I am subject to institutionalised theft.
Fine, that’s a valid position to take. Can’t see as it’s going to gather much support, but it’s perfectly logical given your baseline assumptions.
It is something we may have little practical choice on in the near future…..
Can you expand on this a little? How much specialisation is permitted before it is dehumanising? Is collective bargaining allowed? How do you prevent this from developing into companies, merging, growing creating networks and slowly re-creating the system we have now?
Something I call ‘vigilance’ (neither abuse other nor allow them to abuse you) combined with a recognition that a free market can only remain free if it is based on need not greed (based upon the judgement call of the people involved), as a motivation of greed leads to the creation of a power-elite monopoly that destroys the free market. I posted this elsewhere, but it might bare repeating:
The problem is that Capitalism and Free Market have become synonymous, when Capitalism, strictly speaking, is about the “lords and serfs” relationship (where the worker works and the owner reaps benefits based on his ownership rather than his labour) whilst the free market is about people taking charge of their own lives (so long as it carries a “need not greed” mandate within it – as greed heads back towards “lords and serfs”, whilst “need” allows for difference in levels of wealth without recourse to power-elites). Thus by all means have some richer than others, but to allow that to degenerate into a power-elite / disenfranchised situation (where one class is essentially largely subservient to another class) is to essentially plough the field for socialism.
Socialism and communism are responses to capitalism that do not learn from its mistakes. In seeking to combat the disenfranchisement brought about by capitalism they may succeed in redistributing some of the results of work, but remain essentially patronising by not redistributing the majority of the direct control of such. Essentially socialism and communism are like an over-protective parent responding to a foolish child; by being over protective they never allow the child to grow up (and so are guilty of fluffy fascism).
Capitalism is just one form of Free Market – it is a market free from any restrictions what so ever (including moral and common sense ones)!
What is needed is a Free Market as delineated above (“need not greed”), that would not (in theory!!!!) turn into a “lords and serfs” situation and would thus avoid the slow slip into communism.
This would still allow a variety of wealth, as well as a process of improvement, but such would not get out of hand and create power-elites.
The ‘Free’ in Free Market, does not mean ‘free from common sense’, it means free from control by an elite – and a market that operates contrary to the above “need not greed” approach will always be ultimately self contradictory / destructive through the creation of such an elite
Yes it is vague, yes it is fuzzy, but it for the people involved to decide (through ‘vigilance’ ) rather than a central management system.
If we are all to be growing our food on our allotments, basking in the newly-rediscovered cooking of our old ‘rural life’, never mind our excessive wealth, where will all this time come from?
Considering that time is eaten by the pursuit of greed (whether our own or that of the xxxxx we work for), time would be freed up to do such things. A primarily self-supporting life takes remarkably little effort (it is only when you are trying to grow into something that is more productive that effort is seriously expended, and time used up).
Put simply, who will deal with my shit?
A local community sewage treatment that creates compost for your allotments, instead of dumping it in landfills two counties over, or pouring it straight into the sea…..
Who will write my plays, compose my music
Primarily people in your own community (why don’t you give it a try??), although there is still the space for regional and national theatre etc.
and make the tv shows I want to watch?
Well we may have to lose a lot of TV. Is that so bad?? Would folks need to find an alternative soma, or perhaps live in a real community instead of a piped one (soaps).
Who will generate my electricity?
Sustainable sources with a lower demand instead of the power on tap we have gotten used to.
Who will defend me from other less enlightened nations and peoples?
You will, in conjunction with your family, friends, neighbours and wider community.
Who will grow my tobacco and bottle my wine?
Well, maybe you could do it yourself or actually trade for those things you cannot?
And where will they find the time to do all that whilst fending for themselves in a personal, humanised, natural way?
Well, gee, we managed a couple of hundred years ago!
You appear to want to have your cake and eat it too. You want to remove society and retain its benefits. You want a technologically advanced life-style but not the complex network of association, interdependence and mutual support that allows it. Simply saying that you’re all for trade doesn’t make this a coherent policy. What am I missing? Just how much self-reliance is required in your model? How does it work? Please explain, because as it stands it is the so-called left-wingers that have the flawed but working model and the gaps in yours seem more akin to the ‘magic wand’ approach. The onus is on you to prove viability – we can point to the country as we know it as a basis for improvement.
My standard would probably be late 1700s / early 1800s America (just after the war of independence) but with a great deal of additional technology that is sustainable still under a less intensive system. Note, before you bring up the slave issue take notice that such was a factor of i. An overly wealth driven environment, ii. How does the condition of the third-world today differ? and iii. The industry of the North (that took over from the slave-driven agriculture of the south after the 1860s war between states) was itself built on the backs of slavers (as the cotton grown in the south was processed in the mills of the north) and was itself guilty of keeping immigrant workers in appalling conditions in order to work in the factories.
Yes, I read your post, did you? I’m aware that you want to lower the mean standard of living in this country. I went out of my way to acknowledge your point that life is richer/easier in the ‘developed’ world. The point I was making was that what you propose is to create exactly the same imbalance that exists between nations at present within out society. Right now, the poor nations approach the rich and ask for alms. The rich choose how much to give and to whom. This is often based on the previous character of these countries, do they deserve it, will they just spend it on booze and drugs (guns and corruption) are they making an effort to better their position. You manage to criticise this state of affairs without seeing that the same imbalance of haves and have-nots is what you propose on an individual scale within Leaptopia. Hence the inflammatory rhetoric. Realising the impact of your proposals and pointing them out is not the same thing as ‘making it up as I go along’. If you do not like my conclusions then argue why they are not applicable or adjust your plans to prevent them coming to pass.
Right now we have built a society on a system that keeps the rich in the position of power over the poor. What I am proposing is a system that will still allow space of luxury and differences in wealth but which will allow the poorer greater opportunity and ability to actually be independent of the richer as far as their basic upkeep and general life is concerned.
Income tax can be set centrally, because individual wages are, in the main, not. That is why we have ‘London weightings’ and so on. Are you suggesting that they should take into account your ‘personal expenses’ and if so, are you prepared to declare them? As a beer-swilling, meat-eating smoker who loves dvds should I pay less tax because these items I spend my income on are comparatively expensive? Should society subsidise my support of these industries?
I was imagining a line graph with ability on one axis and taxation demand on the other. If this was agreed upon as the least ‘unfair’ system, I would insist that the line continue past the origin to include those of negative ability receiving a positive taxational benefit as a model for the basis of welfare. This places ‘benefit’ in purely monetary terms which, as other posters have gone to lengths to points out, is a peculiarly blinkered approach but it was just an illustration.
Aha. That would undoubtedly motivate some to avoid work (“benefit scroungers”) or to take steps to make themselves an unfairly ‘acceptable’ recipient (“meal-ticket mothers”), whilst breeding an attitude of powerlessness in the disenfranchised providers of welfare (the “tax payer) who are milked by the state (rather than have their own opinion / judgement valued) for the needs of those who do not contribute.
If you want to engage your new tone of laughing superiority then you might have to engage with those who disagree with you and not just post one-line non sequitors to their objections.
Sometimes one liners will suffice, sometimes they will not. Given the amount of hostility inherent in many of the posters here (which often appears as supercilious mimicry or spinning what I have said to suit their own peculiar bias), and the fact that I do have a job to hold down, I can hardly be blamed now can I?
Kit Kat –
in a representative system, taxation is not theft; and as things stand in this argument your problem with the idea of taxation would appear to be with the representative system, rather than with taxation per se. In other words: you feel that the government has nothing to do with you, and that this elite is taking away your money without your consent and spending it on things over which you feel you have no control. It seems to me that the basis of this is not the 'taking away my money' bit but the 'not representing me adequately' bit, in which case it's the representative nature of the system which you are calling into question.
Not really Kitkat; I object to things being taken out of my hands, and my life being largely managed, by a patronising govt that believes people should not be free to in-the-main direct and take responsibility for their own lives. I object to being ‘cattle farmed’. I do not object to govt per se, my preference is for small govt, focused, in the vast majority of cases that it has a role, on a local basis (a court of my peers/community), that is funded by donation (under MY judgement) rather than taxation (under THEIRS).
One might follow Hobbes in saying that liberty is the fundamental state of mankind, and security is what we instate to overcome that fundamental state of liberty, in which (notoriously) there are
'no art; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.'
But such govt should be small in total, primarily local (directly democratic) with the national (representative (constitutional republican)) being a far lesser function, and funded by donation not demand. The majority should be a simple “live and let live” attitude guarded by an armed populace guided by ‘vigilance’.
….. The welfare state is thus an emblem and an enactment of our individual and collective security…..
I understand your argument Kit Kat, I just disagree with it on the grounds that it has grown to an excessive size and now takes money of demand rather than donation (making me its servant, not its master). |
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