Be very suspicious when you hear the phrase “gap between rich and poor”. In the print version of the Evening Standard (I could not find a link to the article), Financial editor Anthony Hilton writes an article that makes a lot of rather questionable unspoken assumptions.
Gordon Brown will not change the rules that attract tax exiles to London. he is right to want the super-rich to stay but we must be aware the increasing gap between rich and poor
…and…
The British economy could be about to enjoy another 50-year boom but the major challenge remains the division of the spoils
…and…
The unwritten deal is that they pay little tax in return for adding to the general prosperity of the nation. It may be unfair to normal British taxpayers, it may be unfair competition from the perspective of foreign competitor countries, but it is pragmatic and it has worked
Although this article goes on to say that it is now the uncontested view that market economies are the only way to go, Anthony Hilton’s words are redolent with an assumed underpinning Marxist meta-context, to use Samizdata-speak. The fact that there is a gap between rich and poor is bad is a given to him. Why is it bad? He does not say because his meta-context takes it as a given that such a notion will be shared by his readers.
And that an economy is something that must be ‘divided as spoils’ is very strongly indicative of the fixed quantity of wealth fallacy. It suggests that for someone to get richer, someone else has to get poorer, which is perhaps the single most important underpinning notion behind almost every form of command based economics. Wealth is seen as something “we” have to divide, rather than something which is created.
Finally, for it to be “unfair” for someone else to have less of their money taken by the state even when that person can bring a quality of economic value beyond that of “normal British taxpayers”, seems to indicate that Anthony Hilton thinks the person being taxed more (in relative terms) should feel aggrieved against the person being taxed less rather than feeling aggrieved against the state which is taxing them more. Of course Anthony Hilton might not mean that but somehow I suspect he does.
Make no mistake, Anthony Hilton is not some poisonous Polly Toynbee style Stalinist as he does accept that market economies are the way to go, yet in almost everything he writes there is a large (and often unspoken) ‘but’ implicit in notion after notion… which is why I do not actually think he really does like the idea of market economies when it really comes down to it.
As you said, it’s the meta-context that provides the foundation for the majority of academia and journalism in modern Britain.
It is especially the question of private property. A sound philosophical justification of that phenomenon is impossible within the Marxist meta-context, and, so, it seems to me that very few opinion formers truly believe they have that right. At best, you get people like Hilton who don’t think about it too much and accept market economics from a utilitarian angle. If a detailed, axiomatic defence of private property was part of the national discourse, we might get some objective debate, if not good policy.
For decades, the assertions and assumptions of collectivist theories regarding economics, social organization, politics, and culture have been drummed into the minds of students from early childhood to post-graduate doctoral candidates.
Any deviation from those tenets, any question, any attempt to argue for an alternative viewpoint was, and is, dealt with ruthlessly, especially in the higher academic setting. Biting sarcasm, and scornful dismissal by instructors and peers, soon make it very clear to those foolish enough to put forward any but the “approved” case that this course is fraught with peril.
“Diversity”, in any intellectual sense, is unwelcome, and repressed by means both subtle and blatant.
Meanwhile, the claims of collectivism have now become a system of default cliche’s and assumed aphorisms, almost unconscious in their usage, like Latin American peasants who cross themselves when confronting any difficult situation.
Just as it doesn’t seem to register that dozens of people who spent their whole lives crossing themselves were just killed in some flood or earthquake, and so the reflexive gesture is of dubious utility, so it never occurs to those thoroughly steeped in collectivist “education” that their contradictory tenets might negate one another, or that there might be reasons related to those half-formed ideas that keep driving collectivist societies off economic cliffs to their impoverishment and eventual collapse.
The danger of collectivist theories is not just that they are badly constructed and counter-productive, but that they seem to short-circuit the brains’ ability to think clearly about important questions.
Their disconnection from reality leads to unreal thinking in general—a dangerous business in any circumstance.
You are making the assumption that he put his brain in gear before he wrote this article. I can see no evidence to support that hypothesis.
Isn’t the whole idea of a gap between the rich and the poor a tautology?
Perry
The fact that there is a gap between rich and poor is bad is a given to him. Why is it bad?
Isn’t that obvious? If the gap between rich and poor keeps exponentially increasing, there will be increasing pressure from populist politicans to “do something about it”.
There will also be increasing resentment to the entire free market system, which would lead to calls for its tighter regulation.
A system doesn’t have to be popular for its survival, but it mustn’t become loathed.
But it is the acceptance that it is self-evidently a bad thing that needs to be challenged or it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People often get annoyed because they are told that so-and-so should annoy them. Suggesting otherwise is what moving the meta-context actually all about.
Wealth envy is the sine qua non of all journalism, business journalism included.
A good critique. I’ve lost count of how many times people have spouted “if these guys are getting so rich, they must be making other people poor” at me. Of course, when you reply “how?” they fall down a little bit 😉
Perry
that is true. It would be so refreshing to hear a politican stand up and defend wealth creators per se.
sadly they think its a vote-losing proposition
It is a vote losing proposition. If wealth creation cannot be tied directly to job creation, the societal benefits are lost on the sound-bite-numbed populace
This reminds me of the most recent Doctor Who episode, with its Hooverville and complaints of building the world’s tallest building (The Empire State Building’s construction is central to the plot) all while people starve.
They also hammered again and again at the disposability of labor during the depression (as if that was uniquely American back then).
Still, love the new companion, but could have done without the low-grade Marxism.
Presumptive socialism/marxism is deeply entrenched.
Two thoughts:
(i) The gap between the rich and the poor is filled with most of the population.
(ii) Those who see binary division where there is nothing but a continuum are suffering from some intellectual deficiency. When they try and make something of it too, they are very likely just making trouble for the rest of us.
Best regards
XML,
I think the Dr Who episode was interesting precisely because it authentically treated the Depression as a mysterious disaster that the people involved didn’t understand. The disposability of labour has explanatory value in the plot.
Nobody has offered a caring-sharing solution; the moral of the story thus far could rather more easily be read as, a paean to voluntary association: “Help yourselves. The state won’t.”
I suspect a Marxist version would have found space for a Wobbly character. And an attempt to be more ‘realistic’ or more socially prescriptive would have had more trouble dismissing segregation (absence of) with a single line.
I think it was the late Robert Nozick, who said in Anarchy, State and Utopia that the ideal of everyone having an “equal share” of wealth is assumed by socialists at such a deep level that they rarely, if ever, feel obliged to justify it. In fact, if you pose the rhetorical question, “Why is equality just?”, such people will react with amazement. That is part of the problem.
The idea that one has a natural right to property, that property over oneself can be extended to the fruits of the labours that sustain that life, are hardly ever defended today outside a few libertarian authors like Tibor Machan. And yet this has to be the core of any defence of capitalism and the open economic orders of the west. Even the late Milton Friedman tended to give what was a consequentialist defence of free enterprise, which was fine as far it goes, but also missed the need to anchor the case for property and free exchange in morality.
I remember having fruitless and circular debates with the old comment thread bore Euan Gray, who like a lot of legal positivists argued that property was a “social construct”, presumably with the implication that it could be deconstructed whenever it suited the passing fancies of the crowd to do so. It was nothing more than a “might is right” doctrine. But if the case for property is not properly defended, such views will gain the false patina of credibility.
The gap between the “rich” and the “poor” will increase if you acquire some extra richer rich people. This does not necessarily actually make the poor any poorer.
It’s like averages. One or two extra persons of sufficient wealth in a group can drive up the average calculation of the wealth of the group.
Such averages are much quoted by the press and others. If people compare their earnings to that average then the comparison when it rises will make them seem poorer. “Poverty” figs then rise…
If it is soundbites you are after, Mrs Thatcher came up with one of her best –
“They’d rather the poor got poorer, than see the rich get richer”
– in one of her best speeches and following exchanges in the House, I believe during the no confidence vote – “I’m enjoying this!” speech.
She taunted the Socialists to come on one after the other as their arguments were no match. She wiped the floor with them.
The fact is the Socialist concept (meta-context?) that the State has first call on your earnings has been spread successfully. The use of words are so important. Someone talked of the pensions tax change as being “ending a subsidy for the rich”, as if any tax not taken is a gift, payment or subsidy. The NERVE!
I believe it is our duty to fisk/quash/explode all occurances of language that promotes the State’s first call on our earnings and property.
I don’t think it’s all that complicated. Many people think this is a bad situation, not just raving marxists.
It may seem fair to the residents of Chelsea and Mayfair, but most normal people paying 52p in the pound as tax suspect that they are subsidizing the foreign millionaires of Chelsea who are paying zero on the pound. To most normal people that looks like a subsidy to the rich.
You don’t even have to be a rich foreigner to pull this scam. Any frenchman with a job who gets a transfer to this country will pay no tax here, or in France. I wonder why there are so many French in London these days ?
But as you say it coud just be envy and failure to undestand the fixed wealth fallacy. Right. So suppose we reverse it – no tax on the locals but 52 p in the pound for all foreigners ? Or no tax on anyone earning I don’t think it’s all that complicated. Many people think this is a bad situation, not just raving marxists.
It may seem fair to the residents of Chelsea and Mayfair, but most normal people paying 52p in the pound as tax suspect that they are subsidizing the foreign millionaires of Chelsea who are paying zero on the pound. To most normal people that looks like a subsidy to the rich.
You don’t even have to be a rich foreigner to pull this scam. Any frenchman with a job who gets a transfer to this country will pay no tax here, or in France. I wonder why there are so many French in London these days ?
But as you say it coud just be envy and failure to undestand the fixed wealth fallacy. Right. So suppose we reverse it – no tax on the locals but 52 p in the pound for all foreigners ? Or no tax on anyone earning < 100,000, 52% on the rest? I can see you wouldn't like that. Seems just as fair to me.
Despite your best efforts to say otherwise, a dislike of gross inequality, where as Oliver points out, the poorest subsidise the richest, is not the same as a belief that wealth is a fixed quantity to be shared out. If over time 5% of the population gain 80% of the increase in wealth, disparities in wealth will grow ever wider. Of course the absolute numbers of people in the sort of ‘Hooverville’ poverty depicted in Doctor Who are much less now than they were in the 1930s – at least in the west.
However, worldwide the position is as bad or worse than it was in 1930s New York and unless we find some way to share the benefits of increased economic prosperity more widely and more evenly, there will be a backlash. Since the resources on which we depend are often located in those same impoverished corners of the world, that backlash could have serious economic, poliitcal and social consequences.
…and if private property isn’t a ‘social construction’ what is it? – God-given? genetic?
Ian you seem to assume that there is some net benefit in paying taxes otherwise how can the poor “subsidise” the rich.
So for example you also appear to be saying that if X% of the population remain at a steady income level, without any change in behaviour which brings them an increase in their wealth – “Same as it ever was” behaviour. Group Y increase their wealth through trade and other wealth creating behaviour. You implicitly seem to suggest that it is the Y’s fault for moving ahead and that they must “share the benefit” which is wholly theirs.
If I have mis-represented you I apologize but if so I would like to know how.
ian.
It isn’t a social construction. Afterall, all on his ownsome Robinson Crusoe owned his hut.
I regard private property as being just the natural state of things. Sort of like John Locke’s “State of Nature”.
Look how unsuccessful all the alternatives have been all over the world for the last hundred years. It’s because they’re all swimming against the stream.
Hovis is correct.
Also the whole notion that the appropriations of the state is ‘support’ is highly questionable. If the state simply stopped doing 50% of what it does, most people would not even notice. Of the remaining 50% the things that still needed doing (i.e. there was actually a demand in need of being filled) would still get done just via different mechanisms. The things only a state can do can be counted on the fingers of one hand (military, courts, police, CDC).
So Roman Abramovich? Is Abramovich using the NHS? I doubt it. As he has his own security, I don’t think he is much of a burden to the police. State education? Nope. Subsidies to his business? Hardly (in fact the state’s regulations impose costs). Chelsea Football Club certainly benefit from the presence of the local Plod but that would be the case regardless of the owner being a plutocrat. Roads? Well I am guessing that Abramovich still pays tax on his vehicles and fuel, so no free ride there. VAT? Well he still pays that.
How exactly is Joe Smith subsidising the very rich Mr. Abramovich? Well Abramovich is not paying for the British military (at least not directly), I suppose. He is not paying for the ‘benefits’ of all the regulatory apparatus of state. He is not paying for the wealth destroying customs service or inland revenue. He is not paying for the cow flatulence studies or the other myriad of weird things the state finds to do.
But of course the wealth he generate allows other people do do that. But somehow that is “unfair” apparently.
And as I made clear in my article, unlike the likes of Polly Toynbee, Hilton is not a raving Marxist. And yet he (and you) are infused with Marxist underpinning assumptions. I am not saying you are a Marxist, just that your unspoken assumptions are indeed Marxist.
Most French people in the UK do in fact pay tax (I used to work with one) regardless of making their money in the UK, so you have that a bit wrong. If they are domiciled here, they pay tax here, if they are domiciled in France, they pay tax in France.
You reverse the situation to see if that would be “unfair”. But that is not the situation and so it is not really relevant. Yet even if it was the other way around, so what?
Just for argument, why would it be unfair to base taxation not on your income but on the basis of how much taxable wealth your activities generate? If you use your large amount of money to create wealth (via employment or deal making) that other people pay tax on, why not reward that with lower direct tax and thereby encourage more of the same? It makes even more sense when you realise such people are extremely mobile and will simply move elsewhere, taking their wealth creating assets and talents with them, if they are treated better in some other place. In truth in this affluent age, this same dynamic applies to the just “comfortable”, not just the mega-rich (as France is learning to its cost and England’s advantage).
Roman Abramovich generates many many times more wealth than you or I do and (sadly) that means he indirectly ends up putting more money in the hands of the state than you do, just not directly. Even in Hilton’s article he says it is the right thing to have such people here for utilitarian ‘pragmatic’ reasons. And yet somehow generating more wealth and indirectly even more tax, he (and you) still claim it is “unfair”. Sorry but I find that rather weird.
There was always a sort of tactical alliance between those who were practically on the side of freedom but mired in the assumptions of marxism and those who were both practically and theoretically committed to the cause. Now that marxism is largely out as a worldwide political threat, the tactical alliance is no longer useful and the second fight over theoretical underpinnings is on.
Regarding veryretired’s “latin american peasant” bit above, though, it completely misunderstands the purpose and utility of crossing oneself. It is not supposed to be a magic charm to avoid adversity but a request for spiritual aid to be more faithful to the moral precepts of christianity so that when one dies (however that happens) one has a better chance of eternal paradise. Ignorance may be bliss but ignorant mocking is certainly annoying.
It’s quite simple. If the law is not equally applicable to all residents then it is going to attract criticism as unfair. Many people could put away some money if they weren’t paying for everyone else’s comfort – like those hordes who pay 52p tax on income. If you can escape that through being rich or being foreign then it is obviously unfair to the others who are forced to pay, through threat of state violence. It is also a subsidy to the rich/foreign because they are using services and infrastructure paid for by others, which they have no intention of contributing to.
It’s quite obvious really, and odd you can’t see it. Your example of the Russian Oligarch is unfortunate. These people are seen as criminals in Russia, and some of them are I believe here to escape Russian due process. It would be revealing to hear what russians think of the ‘wealth-creation’ of the oligarchs.
Also, your assertion that these people pay more tax than the average man could do with some substantiation. How do you know ?
asks Ian.
It is a natural fact of human life. When people, such as collectivists, refer to private property, or indeed privacy per se, as a “social construct”, what they usually mean is that property rights is not some natural or logical aspect of human civilisation, but rather, something arbitrary, something that can be taken away, or “deconstructed”. There are certain facts about human nature that tend strongly towards the idea of property rights.
Oliver, the obvious solution to your annoyance at such rich folk carrying on as they do is to lower the overall tax burden. One of the things I would like to see, for example, is to remove a whole chunk of the working population from income tax altogether and cut tax rates across the board. It may make the envious or resentful feel a bit better by hitting the “super rich”, but in practical terms this will make bugger-all difference to the average tax burden that most of us have to pay. The big issue is to shrink the state and the tax burden, not least by making it a good deal simpler than the current appallingly complex one.
One of the basic rules of the modern world is that rich people relatively little tax and (especially salaried) people in the middle pay lots of tax. One silly kneejerk reaction is to demand that rich people be taxed heavily also.
Of course, demanding that rich people pay more is a stupid thing to do about this supposed problem. Much better is to demand that people in the middle pay less.
Hovis said you seem to assume that there is some net benefit in paying taxes otherwise how can the poor “subsidise” the rich.
Actually I was quoting Oliver, but in any case I don’t see how you can derive your statement from either of us. I simply agreed with Oliver that our present tax system (and so far as I can tell the US system too) works in favour of the richest. Perhaps you might explain your own argument?
Johnathon Pearce said that property “is a natural fact of human life.” Cobblers – that is on a par with similar statements that property is inalienable. It isn’t in either case as a look around you will clearly show – most of modern London is founded on the appropriation of property by the state at the time of the Dissolution.
Private property is an idea – it is an idea that is generated by humans in society as a way of making that society work – a remarkably good idea but an idea – a construction – nevertheless. Arguing otherwise is mystical hogwash.
Yes, it is genetic. Ants build ant nests, beavers build dams, humans acquire personal property. The most primitive tribesman will own his own spear or penis gourd. It is part of the very nature of our species. To paraphrase Frank Zappa, any system which cannot accept the concept of “mine” will not work.
Cobblers to you, Ian. The idea of property is one that can be discovered by looking at what humans need to survive and even more so, to thrive. You can look at how human life best operates and voila! t=you arrive at the idea of property. It is an “idea” but not one that is just invented out of thin air.
You can logically make the case for property rights by looking at some basic facts. That is what I mean when I say that property is a “natural” aspect of human life; that does not of course mean that people are not willing or able to use brute force to grab what belongs to other people.
I certainly don’t regard the idea of natural rights as “mystical hogwash”.
Yet again an argument that is addressed to something I didn’t say.
Where did I say that natural rights are mystical hogwash?
Where did I say that ideas are invented out of thin air?
Apart from that can you tell me the difference between:
[me] Private property is an idea – it is an idea that is generated by humans in society as a way of making that society work – a remarkably good idea but an idea – a construction – nevertheless.
and
[johnathan] The idea of property is one that can be discovered by looking at what humans need to survive and even more so, to thrive. You can look at how human life best operates and voila! t=you arrive at the idea of property. It is an “idea” but not one that is just invented out of thin air.
You have obviously invented a very good hair splitter – I should patent it if I were you.
“..The big issue is to shrink the state and the tax burden, not least by making it a good deal simpler than the current appallingly complex one..”
“..One silly kneejerk reaction is to demand that rich people be taxed heavily also.. ”
I don’t hear many rich people alling for the liberation of the toiling tax-paying masses. Until that happy day, I’ll accept that the rich pay the same rate of tax as everyone else.
Many of the rich are actually in government, securing high taxes for us whilst they benefit from tax-free incomes themeselves. For anyone who doubts this refer to the EU and it’s tax-free salaries, or any scandal of recent memory perhaps involving tory party chairmen or cabinet ministers and their interesting foreign benefactors.
What is unfair and unreasonable is that foreign residents pay UK tax only on their UK income, whereas resident British citizens must pay UK tax on their worldwide income. That’s less of a gap between rich and poor than between rich and rich.
The message it gives is, if you are a British citizen UKgov owns you, if you are a foreigner you are granted the immunity of foreign sovreignty. Whether that position will stay the same when all foreign residents are fully traceable via biometric visas and registration of their residential addresses (under the UK Borders Bill) one wonders. Those who like the privacy here may not stay to find out.
If you claim that your argument is not any different than mine then there is no point in continuing this further. I made the case for natural right to property, and you poo-poohed the notion. Whatever.
“Also, your assertion that these people pay more tax than the average man could do with some substantiation. How do you know ?”
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/04in05tr.xls(Link)
If you scroll down to the last item on this sheet (from the IRS) under “Total income tax share (percentage)
In 2004, in the US, the wealthiest 10% paid over 68% of all income taxes. The top 25% paid over 84%.
Johnathan – normally in discussions, even on the internet, it is customary to respond to what is said or written, not to invent something and respond to that. Since you won’t/can’t do that, I agree – no point in going further.
Duncan – interesting stats. Normally arguments erupt because a particular change in tax law works to the benefit of the ‘better off’, so leading to a relative shift in positions. These figures however show a very different picture.
[Can anyone point to similar figures for other countries? It would be interesting to compare the position for countries within and without the EU for example. How have these figures changed over time?]
I think arguments about relative positions do have some force nevertheless. If you are on very low pay/minimum wage and see yourself losing out because of tax changes while the very rich gain because of those same changes – often gaining more than you earn in a year – it would be difficult to avoid some feelings of resentment.
This isn’t jealousy – it is a very real concern expressed by those whose daily life is a struggle. It begs the question of taxes in principle of course, but since that temporary measure, income tax, is still very much with us, we have to use its existence as the starting point. Telling people it is their own fault they are poor doesn’t cut it.
The whole UK tax system is a nightmare. No one in their right mind would design the system we have if it were being introduced now. I haven’t however seen convincing arguments for any alternative. Arguments for my otherwise favoured choice of a flat rate tax – at least the ones I have seen – seem to ignore the costs of transition. Any pointers to the contrary appreciated.
Okay Ian, here we go:
That paragraph struck me as a clearly blunt refutation by you of the idea that there is anything “natural” about property, or that there are such things as inalienable rights. I defend the idea that rights to property can be thought of as natural since one can look at the requirements of human nature — such as the need to retain the fruits of labour in order to survive – and deduce that property is a requirement of human nature. That is what classical liberals usually mean when they talk about property rights in this way.
In a trivial sense, of course the idea of property rights, laws, whatever, are ideas, and therefore “constructed”; but when most people who are hostile to property/privacy sneer that property rights are social constructs, what they usually imply is a desire to do a bit of deconstruction.
If you think I am splitting hairs or attacking you for things you did not say then I apologise. But I responded to the paragraph I highlighted. Let’s leave it there and move along.
How can property rights be a social construct if they exist even with no humans around?
When one dog tries to take away the bone of another dog, it seems pretty clear to me that the original owner well understands the notion of “mine”.
Amazing that can do that without any sort of “narrative” to guide them, isn’t it? :-P.
Let me have one last go at explaining where I stand.
Inalienable does not mean natural. Any right can be abrogated given sufficient force, force that the state applies with great regularity. It is not ‘sneering’ to recognise and accept this fact of life. It is indeed complained about here with great regularity.
Any talk of rights – to property, even to life itself that fails to recognise that is treating what you think should happen as if it was the reality – a utopian fantasy that libertarians seem unfortunately as prone to as every other political ideology.
Ian, I think you will have a hard time finding any serious classical liberal who would argue that rights cannot be abrogated “given sufficient force”. Rights have to be protected, they do not do so on automatic pilot. (I hardly suggested otherwise). It is precisely why the right to property is meaningless, for example, if people do not have the means to defend it and the legal structure to delineate it in cases of potential dispute. We write about this all the time.
But, for the umpteenth bloody time, Ian, when I mentioned the idea that property is “socially constructed”, I used that term in the sense that it is normally used by people who are hostile to the idea of private property. It is a truth but also a trivial one that property is an aspect of human civilisation and therefore “constructed” in some way; but by talking about the notion of “natural rights”, liberals root the case for property not in utilitarian calculus, or the passing fashion of economics, but in what are regarded as universal and long-term human needs, ie, for freedom and the ability to secure the fruits of labour.
If you think that is “splitting hairs”, well that is too bad. I think we need to take precision in language seriously.
Just an observation; the communist side of this debate seems to be coming from many contributors in many shades and shavings of meaning, with only one or two sustained arguers.
Which is the usual technique in orchestrated assault.
It’s all so cliched, and must have been planned in some beery fantasy world at Islington Poly or some dank corner of a public house in Luton.
Pietr, I am more of a red wine man myself. Never liked student beer.
Jonathon, I refuse to believe that the kind of people who drink red wine and holiday in Tuscany, all the while living in Camden,can come out with such dangerous nonsense.
On the other hand, that is precisely why the (real) conservatives failed to appreciate Blairism.
Ah well.
I suppose we can now look forward to ‘crazy like a fox’ Cameron.
And for the umpteenth bloody time – if rights can be abrogated they cannot be inalienable!
…and as for the drivel about communists in Luton (or wherever) the only cliche evident here is the usual paranoia about conspiracies – which to be fair has taken longer to appear in this thread than normal.
Wow ! I haven’t been called that in decades. Ah.. the memories..
I think arguments about relative positions do have some force nevertheless. If you are on very low pay/minimum wage and see yourself losing out because of tax changes while the very rich gain because of those same changes – often gaining more than you earn in a year – it would be difficult to avoid some feelings of resentment.
Mm.
If someone gained more than I made in a year from a tax cut, they would have to have been paying more than I make in a year in tax to begin with.
Why would anyone with a mind resent someone who pays more taxes than they do? By my reconing, they’re doing me a favor by subsidizing services I benefit from.
This isn’t a logical issue, it’s an emotional one.
Actually certain rich and politically connected people have always rather liked the idea that private property is “allowed”, because it is “useful” in such and such a way. As this allows them to say “we could make much better use of that land than the people who have it now, the community would greatly benefit from the land being developed by us…….”.
Of course a “rule utilitarian” would reply that he still thought that private property was a social constuct – but that it should be treated “as if” it were not (in order to stop politically connceted interests playing this game).
“No you do not understand, everything is a social construct”.
No it is not. For example, rape is wrong – regardless of what most people may claim to think.
“Prove it is wrong” – category mistake.
On the “lesser evil” argument, I quite accept that there are times when theft may be the lesser evil (one can think of sorts of fantasy examples), but it remains an evil – so the burden of proof must be unon the violator (and he should be prepared to be punished for his crime).
For example, if I decide to steal some flowers from a local garden because the little green men from Mars are going to torture to death some small children if I do not – this may indeed be the lesser evil. However, I must prove beyond all reaonable doubt that there really are little green men from Mars who are going to do as I claim (and “I have a voice in my head” will not do). Then I must show that there was no other way of saving the small children (for example by shooting the little green men), and (finally) I must hand myself over for punishment after I have stolen the flowers.
The virtue of justice (to each his own – i.e. respecting property right) is indeed not the only virtue and if may sometimes be the “lesser evil” to violate justice – but this is not the case (in real life) nearly as much as many people seem to think.
For example (as rule utility, “utilitarian” is a word too closely connected to J.B. to people before him, people from Hume to Hayek have been fond of pointing out) there is no tension between resptecting private property and wishing to reduce poverty – as government intervention (especially over the long term) tends to mean there is more (not less) poverty than would otherwise have been the case.
As for “inequality”, when people who denounce inequality start attacking monetary expansion (credit money bubble politics) that is a primary way that mega rich people are created by government (for example have a look at the people connected with the “Long Term Capital Management” business enterprise) I might be interested in what they have to say.
Insecure property rights (property being treated as something that can be “distributed” in line with what is “socially useful” – i.e. in line with politics) and credit money expanision have been (for example) a great characteristic of Latin America (at least since the break down of the Spanish Empire in the early 19th century) – not an area known for equality of income or wealth.
However, Perry is correct – vast wealth is not wrong, and neither is having vastly more than someone else.
For example, I am poor. I live on what is left of my savings (earned as a security guard over many years) and I do not own the house in which I sit.
Down the road (two to three miles from me) lives the Duke of B. (one of the greatest private landowners in the United Kingdom), I have no reason to believe that the Duke is a “better man” than I am, and even if he had worked for (rather than inherited) his land this would not prove that he is good and I am bad (I certainly do not except the American idea that “loser” somehow implies “bad person” – I am loser in life, but I do not see this as making me bad). However, I do not have a right to any of the Duke’s money – or a scrap of his land.
And if he was ten times as wealthy, and I was starving to death (not that wealth causes poverty – a false notion), I still would not have a right to any of his money or land.
I do not claim to be a hard working or a skilled man. But, as Hayek was fond of pointing out, often the hardest workers and the most skilled people (including those skilled in business) are destroyed by events that no one could predict in advance, and that sometimes very lazy or stupid people either inherit wealth or became wealthy by a series of events.
It is a mistake to equate moral worth with wealth – either in the way of “I am rich, therefore I am good person” or in the way of “he is a lazy person and is rich – therefore I should have his money”.
This confusion of moral worth “leading to” or “deserving” X, Y, Z, can lead to just as much error as the idea that we “allow” property because it is “useful” in such and such ways.
For people who prefer short comments:
Britain entering a “50 year boom” – a fantasy.
“Sharing the spoils” – one of the reasons it is a fantasy.
a.sommer said
I was talking however about the situation, not unusual in our stupid tax system, where someone on £15k pa loses out from a tax change, while someone on £80k gains. Complaints about that sort of inequality do have validity I believe.
I agree. The notion of inalienable rights is preposterous. Rights are derived naturally but can be alienated by actions.
You have the right not to be shot at. The moment you shoot at me without a damn good reason, you alienate that right not to be shot at.