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Are most British people collectivist?

In yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, Janet Daley refers to a major opinion survey. When asked the question of how they would help poor people with £200 pounds (about $360) only one per cent of the survey went for the option of giving the money to local government (even though this option said that that local government would have to spend the money on trying to help the poor) and ZERO per cent went for the option of giving the money to national government (even though, again, this option said that the government would have to use the money to try and help the poor).

The British public overwhelmingly opted for directly helping the poor themselves, or for giving the money to a private charity.

I know one can not trust opinion surveys, but it is possible that most British people are not really as collectivist as they sometimes seem.

20 comments to Are most British people collectivist?

  • snide

    Holy Cow! Paul Marks is being optomistic! Clearly the world is about to end!!!

  • I think most people would rather reap the “Gee, ain’t I great?” feelings they’d get from giving directly as opposed to via the government. The benefits of altruism to those individuals increase exponentially with each additional person who is made aware of what a swell human being they are.

  • Julian Taylor

    I give enough money to the poor, downtrodden, imbecilic and ill-educated every day as it is – I buy a ticket to use London Underground.

  • I would keep it. Government takes enough money from me anyway in taxation.

  • ThePresentOccupier

    I’d rather give my time than money anyway.
    Yes, the immediate feelgood “altruistic” rush is far more potent than having a 3rd party administer the largesse (and cut into it with administrative fees, junkets etc.)

  • Guy Herbert

    The late David Ogilvy (who knew a thing or two about using surveys properly) used to point out that the great American public was convinced that corporate profits were “too high”, but when asked to give an estimate of what a “fair” profit might be, on average gave a figure between four and five times the actual returns achieved by Dow 500 companies.

    Properly handled, polling quantitative questions might achieve something politically, because the public really has no idea how much things cost relative to how much it values them, and no concept at all of the personal cost.

    Imagine the results of asking people should defense spending be more or less than social security and by how much… But don’t expect it to cause a revolution, because even quite educated people can’t get their heads around quite simple numbers or the need to make choices. The other day I asked an ID-card fan who was convinced “it would cut down crime”, whether they would rather have ID cards or (at equivalent cost) double the size of the police force: Entirely blank look; pause; resumption of argument as if I had said nothing.

    As long as the choice is not explicitly in their hands, and the money involved is not directly paid out by them, the great majority cannot conceptualise government spending as a purchase decision on their behalf. It is manna from heaven.

  • Yes, but read the rest of the linked article. After criticising the Welfare State and praising the virtues of charitable giving, Duncan-Smith says this:

    “The welfare state has crowded out most of the room for such giving. I want more taxpayer’s money to go to the kind of welfare entrepreneurs that enjoy the confidence of needy people and local communities – groups run by people who have personally conquered problems such as drug addiction.”
    (emphasis added)

    In other words, Duncan-Smith doesn’t actually believe in real charity – the sort where somebody decides to give some of the money away – he believes in the same coerced charity that we have now – except that he would replace the DSS with War on Want and Oxfam.

    Big bloody deal.

  • SteelCoder

    Of course, saying one thing and doing it are two entirely separate things.

  • Euan Gray

    But did they ask what people would think if the hypothetical £200 donation was in lieu of, and not in addition to, £200 taken in taxation to fund skoolz-n-‘ospitals type public spending? I suspect you’d get a somewhat different view of public opinion then.

    Surely the problem is not that people cannot see state expenditure as a proxy purchasing decision, but rather that they cannot see any link between taxation and state expenditure at all.

    The amount of money spent on welfare (not the NHS) is roughly equivalent to the state income from VAT and personal income tax combined. If you suggest to people that they should not bother paying these taxes and should make their own arrangements, then they start bleating about how “something has to be done” to help the unfortunate, and the inevitable solution to this in their minds is collectivist.

    This survey doesn’t ask whether people think state welfare provision should be replaced with private provision, and I think it is unreasonable to extrapolate from a scepticism about government efficiency to a willingness to abandon state “public services”.

    EG

  • Tedd McHenry

    I’ve often wondered what would happen if donations to charity were eligible for a 100 percent income tax refund. In other words, if you could pay zero income tax by donating the amount you would have paid to charity. This survey suggests that it might actually be possible to win an election on that platform.

  • Julian Taylor

    Bear in mind that political parties are also registered as charities in the UK. You could donate £500,000 to Labour to get your life peerage (under the Tories it was less than £100,000) and still get your money back from the taxpayer. I bet Bernie Ecclestone would love that one.

  • Rob Read

    I would burn it and fight the silent wealth killer that is inflation.

  • Tedd McHenry:

    “I’ve often wondered what would happen if donations to charity were eligible for a 100 percent income tax refund. In other words, if you could pay zero income tax by donating the amount you would have paid to charity.”

    Me too but it will never happen because the State would end up receiving zero revenue; nobody in their right mind would hand over any cash to the State if they can choose to give it to the charities of their choice.

  • foobie

    Me too but it will never happen because the State would end up receiving zero revenue.

    You say that like it’s a bad thing :o)

  • All this tells you is what (they say) they’d do with money in their hands. It really tells you nothing about what they’d be willing to commit other people’s money to.

    Most people are collectivist, nearly everywhere.

  • foobie:

    “Me too but it will never happen because the State would end up receiving zero revenue.”

    You say that like it’s a bad thing :o)

    Then you don’t know me 😉

  • Bear in mind that political parties are also registered as charities in the UK.

    Really? I thought that charties had to be (nominally) apolitical. This is one of the excuses Bisley Rifle Club, sorry the NRA, gives for being such a useless shower of shit, sorry I mean not being politically active.

  • Joe

    Well, I used be able to hear the ‘moo-ing’ from here, but not that much lately…

  • Guy Herbert

    Bear in mind that political parties are also registered as charities in the UK.

    Rubbish.

    Charity law is–like so many other fundamental institutions–in the course of being silently revolutionised by New Labour to suit its political view of the world, but even those proposals do not treat political parties as charities.

    Also, charitable donations are not tax- deductible in the UK. (There’s not really such a thing as tax-deductability here.) The charity may, under certain circumstances recover income tax you have actually paid on your donations already. By increasing national insurance contributions rather than income tax, Gordon not only manages to avoid the mug punters noticing the tax increases, he makes sure he doesn’t inadvertently end up giving extra money to charities of the taxpayer’s choice.

  • Guy:

    “Also, charitable donations are not tax- deductible in the UK.”

    Not quite true. I believe that higher rate taxpayers can claim back the difference between basic rate and higher rate tax on a gift aid contribution.