Succulent Lambery alive and well at the Herald

Just over half the lowest earners in society are subsidized by just under half of the higher earners? That sounds like a pretty fair system.

When I look at my payslip on the Isle of Man and see the amount they are taxing me I know there is absolutely no chance I'm getting even 25% of that back. The only public services I use are the pavements, street lights and possibly the Police force keeping me safe - there is no chance I'm staying here long enough to draw a pension and I'm never going to sign on benefits...

So am I pissed off? Well no, not really, I've got a pretty high standard of living and the western world I had the random luck to be born into has presented me with these opportunities. If it wasn't for the wealthy subsidising the poor we'd have much less social mobility. We invest in poorer people so that a certain percentage of them will take the opportunity they are given, earn more money then eventually contribute more than they take. If you're at the stage that you are now contributing more than you take then you are a success story of the state - not a subsidiser of it.

 

Right ok. You meant "realize" and not "realise". That is what threw me.

The context of my post was that some people (on both an individual and corporate level) chose to avoid tax.

I accept we are all taxed to one extent or another.

 

That works on the supposition that all taxes are applied in the same way. A big businessman avoiding taxes through whatever means does not occupy the same moral plane as the common man being taxed at source for his minimum wage just because they both paid VAT for a packet of fruit pastiles.

One has actively sought not to contribute to society at the same rate as the other. Therein lies the moral argument.

 

Yes.... I agree. A good post. Yet i am left with the quandry as to who collects his Dustbin?

 

The people I pay council rates to?

 

To be fair I haven't looked into this fully, nit pickers

 

Hey, if that is all we are moaning about then take it as a compliment to the rest of the post.

 

I am not a self proclaimed anything.

This vomit inducing portrayal of Philip Green as one of life's great altruists just doesn't ring true. PAYE and NI is paid because it has to be paid. Where there is any wriggle room it gets exploited. Paying what you should pay is not praiseworthy. It should be expected. It has **** all to do with what happens in Singapore and elsewhere. The 'moral' argument doesn't rest with what happens anywhere other than the UK. What the rights and responsibilities are of your fellow citizens. If people are finding ways to shirk their responsibilities then there is certainly a moral question.

If you are happy to reconcile the idea of cheating your neighbour to buy new shoes then that is your business. I think it is morally repugnant. Part of caring for your family is caring for wider society to ensure your children don't grow up in a country where selfishly ripping people off is seen as acceptable. I am sure you would agree that the selfish actions of others has at one time or another jeopardised the wellbeing of yourself and your family. Are we saying that is now ok because their first duty of care was to their own kith and kin?

You can justify just about anything if you like but really the morality of the situation is whether people are contributing what they should. Anything else is window dressing.

 

I often think that James Connolly or even George Orwell would be fairly disappointed on what became of the socialist ideal - whereby we got to the stage where the weakest members of our society were protected, and the weakest members of our society then became very comfortable being protected...

While considering this situation from the perspective of someone who thinks himself a 'giver' I just have to accept that some people get into a state of existence whereby they tend to consume more than they produce. I have to try imagine the alternative situation that we had maybe 50 years ago where humans of similar limited means were reduced to absolute poverty. If for nothing more than to make me feel better about my every day life I'd rather have the weakest members of our society protected in a government giving bubble than regularly having to face the same absolute street poverty as is apparent in the likes of India.

 

I am not sure if the old class struggles ring true within the more leftward European states any more. If I was to take the example of my own lifestyle I'd probably be seen as someone who has migrated from the working to the middle classes (although my father would argue that the class you were born into is static, I'll always be working class, which is a semantic I have no issue with either way) yet I certainly don't feel that I am a slave to the upper classes. I work with upper class people all the time, I have colleagues on the board of directors of my company who have been given titles by a Monarch - while such pomp is not my own particular cup of tea (to say the least) these people are not exploiting me right now and I am not exploiting others on their behalf, they are paying me to run a decade old business in which they invested and which has never even turned a net profit. They have been persevering for 10 years without return in the hope that they eventually produce something of value - irrespective of class, the private sector which employs the majority of people around us has been built by such risk takers and for me it is something to be encouraged rather than demonised.

(God, I sound like a Tory...)

Anyway I think the main point I'd like to make is that inequality is something we can never quite eradicate. Christopher Hitchens got it correct when he observed that if you peek over the wall of your own immediate neighbourhood or environment, and travel beyond it, we have a huge surplus of people who wouldn't change anything about the way they were born, or the group they were born into. Some people are happy to just get along doing the bare minimum in life, while fewer others want to try grasp every opportunity they are presented with. While we have these various traits of human nature we shall just need to work around them, and the present system of the redistribution of wealth is not perfect by any means (especially, and I'd have a semi-ally in EDGE here, when it tries to take too much from the more successful thereby impeding their chances of creating further success) but is nevertheless necessary and certainly desirable in some capacity if we wish to maintain a stable enough society to allow everyone the opportunity to become socially mobile.

I can't pretend I know enough about these situations to comment at length but I feel the developing world is maybe at the same stage that Europe was maybe 200-60 years back when the gap in wealth was particular pronounced because the very poorest members of society struggled to afford even the most basic of nourishments. One of the first things that struck me when I visited India was how many people were incredibly fat (with the biggest question in mind, how do these vegetarian teetotallers obtain all those calories? If it wasn't for meat and booze I'd be about 8 stone). It did seem perverse to have to step around skinny people lying asleep on pavements while having casual conversations with their plump compatriots, but I guess if I was to ask one of these people why they don't give away part of their wealth to help others they would throw the very same question back at me. The majority of us will look after ourselves and our fiefdoms as a first priority - and I guess we expect the state to forcefully take some of what we earn and give it away for us. I can only hope that as true Democracy takes charge in these countries then the elected leaders will eventually come under pressure to redistribute wealth to the people who elected them.