After the London Riots in the early August, a lot of 'reasons' surfaced in the next few days to try to explain the actions of the rioters. They varied from the expected, they are feral little s**ts, the unbelievable, they were protesting against police brutality on the black population and the down right silly, their EMA was cut so they HAD to steal the TV.
A lot has been made out about how the youth often feel a disconnect from society, this is why they can attack police and smash up private property. Predictably this has led to the apologists coming back with an attack on the more wealthy part of 'society' as 'just as bad' in their disconnect from society.
In the blog from Peter Oborne which I have linked above, he infuriatingly seems to think that it is the obligation of wealthy people, many of who dragged their businesses up to be what they are today, to pay for everyone else. Apparently moving your business, note the 'YOUR' business, should be looked down on.
He targets Philip Green in this way.
Yes he is providing services and products which due even to their existence lowers the price of the competitors products, benefitting consumers and all the other benefits and innovation that come with the scramble and pressure to make things better quality/ cost wise.
Yes, he may be providing employment for thousands upon thousands of people, allowing them to pay tax, feed their families, keep their choice of shops in business etc
But "Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.
Yet Sir Philip, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this."
What an absolute bastard! What do you mean he won't pay for everyone's schooling, our public transport and government?! How dare he even think of employing people and providing competitive goods.
This is a terrible argument. It suggests he gets free use of government, the public transport network and free slave labour. This is simply not true. The business rates he pays are astronomical. Their is a minimum he has to pay his staff and everytime he uses the transport network, he pays for it...by tax on the road, tax on the vehicle, tax of the diesel, tolls on the road....he pays.
Earlier in his blog we are treated to a scene at a dinner party when the hostess speaks ill of the type of people who smashed up the capital. Again what a bitch!
How dare she consider herself better than those smashing the capital up or those actually in a negative to the state by taking far more than they have any intention of giving back.
She is JUST as bad as those causing the deaths of people trying to defend they homes, or those burning down family business' that have survived a century or the people who destroyed people's homes and their entire lives.
We have to accept that being connected with society is not an obligation. If someone wishes to reap no benefits of society and wishes to not benefit society, that should be up to them, yet even the folk above, vilified beyond reason, still contribute hugely.
The thugs that tore through the streets, homes and lives of so many in the last days are disconnected from society, as is their right, but we are still feeding them, homing them and allowing them to live these disconnected lives.
The point is however, society is meant to be mutually benefitial. That is the whole point and each person has the right to decide whether the deal is fair or not and leave if they arrive at the conclusion that it is the latter.
Anyone even attempting to draw comparisons between them is inaccurately portraying where true blame lies.
So before you start chanting that 'they're just as bad as each other' ask yourself honestly, which group would you prefer as a neighbour.
"their EMA was cut so they HAD to steal the TV" - a little disingenuous, I think. I've not heard anybody suggest the looters *had* to steal because of cuts. Don't forget the principle of cause and effect. I've also heard nobody suggest that the cuts *legitimises* the shameful actions of many of the rioters. It all comes back to *why?*. Why am I a relatively comfortable citizen who doesn't riot, while others act like scum and commit heinous acts? Did we all have a time in our lives when we decide which life path to take? Did I toss a coin to decide whether to be a good or evil? Did the coin land on evil for the looters and good for me? No, we're all born the same, and *something* in society led to the looters growing up the way they have. They didn't have an instance when they decided to disconnect from society. There has to be a *reason*.
ReplyDelete"providing services and products which due even to their existence lowers the price of the competitors products, benefiting consumers and all the other benefits and innovation that come with the scramble and pressure to make things better quality/ cost wise."
I think you're being a little naive here to suggest that lower retail prices is good for everyone. As the cost to consumers comes down there are, inevitably losers. Forget not that many of these consumers of whom you speak, who are apparently so better off for paying less at the till, are also the people who have to work for less as part of the retailers cost-cutting measures. Then there are the people who make and distribute the products, who are in a proverbial headlock to bring down prices.
I take issue also with your assertion that these people were "taking far more than they have any intention of giving back." Granted there are those who want a free ride and will take all they can throughout life, but as the blog in the Telegraph points out, this is not purely confined to the lower ends of the income ladder. One factor that probably sparked the riots is that these are people who are "have *no prospects* of giving back as much as they were taking."
This is one key point where I think you and I differ. I believe it is an obligation for those who have, to help those who have not. I'm delighted to be a taxpayer. If (and this is hypothetical as it's never going to happen) I was ever earning a vast salary I would be honoured to be in the 50% tax bracket so that I could be contributing towards the health and wellbeing of those who are deprived of such opportunities. Yes, this would be *my* business, but this is also *my* society, *my* country, *my* people.
"So before you start chanting that 'they're just as bad as each other' ask yourself honestly, which group would you prefer as a neighbour. "
It's not just about who *I* want to have for neighbours. I don't want *anybody* to have neighbours like some of the thugs we saw on the streets last week. I also don't want *anybody* to have neighbours like Mr Green. We all have a moral obligation to look out for one another. I wouldn't trust Mr Green to look out for me if he were my neighbour.
Albert, firstly you seem to have avoided answering the question I finished the blog with.
ReplyDeleteI will discuss your points in the order you have given them.
1) Yes, reason does not mean justification. However when events like last week happen, for someone to jump back 18 months and say "but THEY were stealing too!" in reference to the MP expense 'scandal', it is framed as very much an excuse instead of a reason.
2)Lowering manufacturing costs is the right of the supplier. If people choose to supply to them for a cost that is their own business choice, if they could sell their product elsewhere for more they would.
Likewise for the Labour force, if they had better prospects then they would go there with their labour, but they obviously don't.
That is the self regulating nature of commerce.
Some people do take more than they give back. Some perfectly nice people are in this position. Where they have a couple of children, only one parent works in a low paid job, so they get income support, child benefit, housing benefit, tax credits which amounts to far more than the family ever pay in tax.
If they are decent people they will aim to correct this imbalance, if they are not, they will sit on the cushion of society and leech from it...and perhaps go nuts if you even attempt to make them less of a drain.
3)The obligation..there is no obligation. An obligation is the lack of free will on the subject, which in itself is an attack on liberty.
You may say you see it as a moral obligation, but that is your own decision and not one that you would have a right to pass on to someone else.
You may be proud to know that 50% of all your time spent at work, away from your family, wasting your life, is being taken from you which in turn will benefit people who spend every moment of their life with their children, taking them to the park and watching them grow without having to spend anything because you're obliged to pay for them.
That is your choice. Liberty is all about choice.
But others will want to see their family more than helping the people who won't help themselves.
You talk about what YOU 'want' a lot, which is fine, but perhaps you should allow others that same courtesy.
Your question is meaningless, which Albert Freeman is probably too polite to point out. So what, what does it prove, that Sir Philip is a "perfectly nice" man but the rioters aren't? I haven't seen anyone anywhere justifying what the rioters did, only those you call "apologists" trying to find out what was at the root of the violence and crime rather than spouting the usual knee-jerk hang 'em and flog 'em. I still don't understand it, and find the whole thing depressing, but maybe we should try and find out so it doesn't happen again? Who we'd rather have living next to us is completely irrelevant, no-one's saying the rioters would make excellent neighbours.
ReplyDeleteLowering manufacturing costs is of course a suppliers' right, but for the system to work properly (which it clearly isn't at the moment) for everyone, there has to be some fairness and morality, not just the law of the jungle, the biggest dictating to the smaller and weaker ones (supermarkets and local suppliers/farmers spring to mind)- I worked for a company years ago which basically had all its suppliers in a stranglehold because it was a specialised industry and the company knew if a supplier went bust because it didn't receive its payments there would be several others queuing up to take its place. All legal, but not fair or moral. This also applies currently in the labour market.
Unless I'm mistaken there certainly IS an obligation. Every month when my payslip arrives I look down the right hand side and see that the government has taken hundreds of pounds off me without asking if I wanted to make this contribution. I'll mention to my employer that this is an attack on my liberty and see if they can arrange for me to stop having to pay it shall I?
Your other comment on the 50% tax is also wrong, but by ignorance or design? Probably the latter as I'm sure you know that we have an incremental tax system in this country which means only income over £150k pa is ever taxed at 50%, so neither you nor anyone else will ever see "50% of ALL your time....etc" taken from you, however much you earn, because your first £150k will always be taxed at lower levels (some at 20% and some at 40%, a small amount possibly not taxed at all). It's a constant piece of disingenuity (if that's a word!) in the tory press to write about the top tax rate as if all these people are paying the higher rate on everything they earn. Anyway, as we see with your friend Sir Philip, if you're earning that much you can afford the clever accountants to make sure you don't pay that much tax.
Martin, again I will answer in order again. When saying that Sir Green is just as immoral as the rioters (which the article said) it suggests to me that you would be hard pressed to decide against them as people you'd want around you. I don't consider that true, and I would imagine you don't. So THAT was the point of the question, there are degrees of 'naughty' and in no-way is streamlining a company's cost base the same or comparible to the violent and in some cases fatal rioting that occurred around the UK. Again, this is what the much retweeted editorial was saying. In relation to your past experience of the law of the jungle, I would suggest your supplier market was over saturated, which would suggest what they did was pretty simple, which would mean the people that managed to do it for less, or more for the same, would succeed i.e. progress. There is as you say a law that allows the government to steal from you, this does not make it an obligation, it makes it an ongoing crime. One which you and many like you seem to like to ignore. Lastly, the 50% point you make it is correct of course, so i will clarify. If you earn £500,000 , YOU keep £258,500 the government takes £241,500. Or you keep 51.7% of what you earn...I can see that 1.7% difference is important to you. My point still stands, that should be a choice and if you can earn that much money in a free market without breaking the rules on fraud or force...well done!
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting ding-dong. I’ll respond to a few issues now…
ReplyDelete"There is ...a law that allows the government to steal from you."
To be honest, I'm not sure I can respond to that, because it is such an absurd assertion. The government is not stealing from us, we are contributing to the wellbeing of the country we live in. Your rhetorical question about having nice neighbours is somewhat flawed, which is why I didn’t really feel I could directly answer it, but the thing is, if we all pay a lot of tax, the government can then spend it on things like education, social services, policing, welfare, healthcare etc. All these things will make it more likely that you have happy, comfortable, content neighbours.
There is a law, as you yourself have observed, that allows wealthy business owners to steal from us. As Martin rightly points out, the Philip Greens of this world, and the Barclays Banks of this world (who in 2009 paid approximately 1% tax from their £11bn profits) have broken no actual *law* as such. But, they’re not really setting a very good example, are they? And if we’re talking scales of ‘naughtiness’ I find it absurd that you can defend such actions, and suggest that the looters were more naughty. Granted, there are exceptions, there were some people out on the streets who committed murder, and burnt down family businesses, but I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about (yet not condoning) the majority of the looters. Somebody who went out onto the streets and stole some trainers worth £50 is not more naughty than somebody who avoids paying millions, or billions, of pounds in taxes.
“if you can earn that much money in a free market without breaking the rules on fraud or force...well done!”
I really have no response to that. I really don’t understand that mindset. We live in a round world; we are all each others neighbours.
There is one other point I would like to pick up on. That is that “lowering manufacturing costs is the right of the supplier.” That, again, is little disingenuous. It is often the case that lowering manufacturing costs is the only option for the supplier, due to large retailers putting the squeeze on the wholesale prices they will pay. Many manufacturers are in a proverbial headlock in this way, and have no choice but to cut corners on their costs.
I’ve just read another piece on this subject, written by Howard Jacobson of The Independent. I think you should read this too.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/a2336895.html
Now it is my time to be shocked.
ReplyDeleteTo steal is to take without permission.
So how can you class the government demanding under threat of imprisonment money from me NOT stealing when you consider tax planning to NOT give the government which is not theirs anyway stealing? Utterly twisted logic. Really quite scary.
If they have broke no law, have done nothing by fraud or force they are not as bad as people who HAVE broke the law (I don't mean just the criminal or civil law, but the golden rule) and have used force and fraud to steal and destroy what was never theirs.
This should be blindingly obvious.
Just using your figures, Barclays (as well as providing employment and services to hundred of thousands)paid £110,000,000 in tax.. the looter who stole £50 (what trainers cost £50 these days?! anyway)is £110,000,050 down on the deal and didn't create employment or services, instead taking it away from others.
Again, not hard to work out which is worse.
Hmm. Although I was facetious about paying my taxes, it seems that you genuinely believe it is a form of theft. As Albert points out you benefit from the things your tax pays for - policing, education, the NHS, the country's infrastructure etc, and what really makes it not stealing from you is that each party lays out its tax plans before the election, one is elected and so has a mandate to carry out those plans - they've effectively been given permission by the electorate (though maybe not by you personally, that's our form of democracy for you) to take the money from us all.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably a moral question more than a legal one - the people evading, or at least avoiding, paying their taxes may not be breaking any laws, but morally they are in the wrong - they enjoy making money from the country (and let's stop pretending that they are being philanthropic in employing staff and paying suppliers etc, they do it to make massive sums of money for themselves, pure and simple, anything else is a by-product). The comparison comes when the rioters etc are accused of being morally bankrupt - where's the difference? Both sets of people have decided not to accept "society's" morals, one set because they are better off by avoiding paying their due taxes, the other because they probably equally feel the morals in no way apply to them because the world they inhabit is so completely different to ours. So why are we expected to vilify as "scum" those who pinched trainers, bottles of water, wine, tv's etc (with Albert's caveat about the violent criminals) but look up to the likes of Sir Philip Green, Sir Richard Branson etc? Oh because their friends run the media and the government, of course! You seem oblivious to the spirit of the law as well as the letter of it - yes, "well done" to those who've made their fortune bigger by avoiding paying taxes, they haven't broken the law or used force, they haven't needed to because they can afford the best financial and legal brains around to ensure they pay the minimum they have to, not really paying their dues to society - although I notice you describe yourself as a Thatcherite (so the riots probably took you on a nostalgic trip back in time) so you probably don't believe in society anyway.
Martin, no amount of people saying otherwise can take away your freedom. Don't want to go all Godwin's law on you, but the will of a majority does not override the rights of a minority. I have no problem with democracy, excluding meritocracy it is the best system going, but you need to submit to its rules BEFORE the election etc to be held by the rules after, even if you don't get what you want.
ReplyDeleteI know it has made me sound otherwise, but I am a charitable guy. I raise money for a number of charities, as well as being a focal point for those hi-vis'd vested high-street hawkers. I do that, because I want to help people, BUT I want a say in who I help..it's MY money after all. Fruit of MY labour.
I don't WANT my money to be wasted, so the best way to avoid that is to let ME decide where it goes.
For example, I would be in favour of a scheme to allow you offset charitable donations against your tax bill. I wouldn't make a penny, but I would know the money wasn't being wasted on nonsense.
Welfare could be catered for by setting up a local body (that dished the money out, much like the old poor laws, you go, you plead your case, you get helped if you really need it, not be automatically entitled to the same funds as everyone else regardless of need) Policing too, could be funded in a similar way.
The reason the 'Sirs' become respected is because by-product or not, they improve the areas around their businesses, by providing employment, by bringing people to the area which helps other local business, which increases demand for labour and therefore housing etc. They are the catalysts of growth.
The public sector is a huge wasteful beast, and while, as you say, I use the services (I'm paying more than my fair share anyway)I'd be happy to have my tax back and be on my own.
Money pours down the drain of the public sector because of one thing, it has no need of value for money. If you run out, just say you need more and if you don't get it you're denying people the service you were meant to be providing.
Philip Hammond also published a study with the backing of the ONS and IFS that showed £60 billion of the £544 billion public spend in 2007 was wasted due to the inefficiency difference of the public sector vs private sector, that is not even mentioning all the services that shouldn't be provided from the central pot in the first place.
That potential saving was 30% bigger than the Local Authority Education bill for that year BTW.
With more money in the pockets of the people, instead of being funnelled into the wrong areas, we could, if we chose, make things a lot better by using the markets.
The government however don't trust you with your money