Hmmm agree with a lot of this post. People are such hypocrites-left, middle, right, it would be so laughable if it wasn’t so f*cking annoying.

Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia – John Gray explains this brilliantly except he uses pure politics with religion to describe the blurs between the left and the right…

People = Silly Billies.

Girls whose daddies buy them a loft apartment in Shoreditch are nice, girls who get knocked up to blag a council flat are nasty.

Not working is disgraceful if one’s idleness is funded by benefits, but quite alright for trustafarians.

I see your point regarding double standards, but don’t you think that there’s a perfectly consistent point of view concerning both these examples, which is ‘I don’t care what you do, provided I don’t have to pay for it’?

” I see your point regarding double standards, but don’t you think that there’s a perfectly consistent point of view concerning both these examples, which is ‘I don’t care what you do, provided I don’t have to pay for it’? ”

If the girls daddy is an oil baron, where has his money come from? Well, exploiting the workers that produce his oil, and then exploiting the consumer at the pump by over charging. So the spoilt rich kid is still spending my money, and it just so happens her daddy is a bigger cheat than the benefit fraudster.

But of course that is my collectivist world view clashing with your individualist one. I guess we will never agree on that

“I have been in otherwise prosperous North American cities and seen block after block transformed into a wasteland as a result of the prevalance of crack cocaine. Yet still I am on balance in favour of the legalisation of Class A drugs.”

You can also be in favour of legalisation because of what Class A drugs do, when they are illegal, to prosperous communities. If heroin were legal, it could be sold at about 10p a dose (make it 20p for a 100% tax if you want). No one would need to mug or burgle anyone to get a hit. Then it really would be a matter for private choice only. We aren’t bothered about middle class coke snorters because we don’t imagine the Cameroons are going to be attacking us on the street (at least not until they get elected and have control of the police).

More generally, I think people need to step back from these singular events like Baby P. Some people are always gonig to commit occasional terrible acts, and no level of regulation or liberalisation will be able to stop that from happening.

An oil baron, at least in theory if not always in practice, is capable of conducting his business through capitalist acts between consenting adults (i.e. striking a deal with his workers, and delivering a wanted product to the consumer). A benefit fraudster by contrast, is only able to get what they want through deceit.

by exploiting the workers

Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help help, I’m being repressed!

A lot of assumptions there Nick. That capitalism is open, honest and a Good Thing (at least you acknowledge this doesn’t happen in practice). That the workers are consenting (you know, the old choice between selling your labour or starving to death). That the product is ‘wanted’ (as opposed to necessary).

And as for Tim J, perhaps you could read this…

“We have a tight comments policy aimed at fostering constructive debate.
We believe in free speech but not your right to abuse our space.
Abusive, sarcastic or silly comments may be deleted. ”

….and then do one.

You are sounding very old school there, Gary. Many workers in the oil industry are very well compensated and have a variety of alternative sources of occupation too. If you are thinking about exploitation in the third world, that is usually due to a lack of enforceable property rights among local communities.

And I said, doesn’t ALWAYS happen in practice. Usually, it works out pretty damn well. We are all more prosperous because of free market capitalism.

A lot of assumptions there Nick. That capitalism is open, honest and a Good Thing …

No, merely that so far that it has proved better than the alternatives on offer.

That the workers are consenting (you know, the old choice between selling your labour or starving to death).

Pretty much every living thing has to work or starve.

That the product is ‘wanted’ (as opposed to necessary)

I don’t understand this last point.

I think he is suggesting that people are being big meanies when they are say they want oil. You know to heat their houses with, or drive or fly to places they want to visit. We would all be much better off living on the steltl.

Oil workers may be well compensated in comparison to the rest of society, but the debate is about whether the oil barons wealth is justified, so the true comparison is between the workers and the oil baron. And clearly they are not well compensated on this scale, and do not enjoy a fair share of the fruits of their labour!

“No, merely that so far that it has proved better than the alternatives on offer.”

Thats not what I was arguing. I was objecting to Nick using the adjective ‘capitalist’, as though it was an objective term for everything good in the world.

“Pretty much every living thing has to work or starve.”

That was pretty much my point.

“I don’t understand this last point.”

My point is that the transaction is not an even playing field when the seller is selling a product for money, but the buyer needs the product to live!

Gary why are you bothering to argue?

To be fair and they are honest, right winger/liberterians do say they believe in the right to ‘self’ and nothing else.

There is no point trying to have an interesting debate with someone about right and wrong, when they don’t even inherently care.

You know reading this, I kind of feel sad. With what’s happening in Niger and stuff about oil which isn’t owned by anyone from the actual Delta or Niger. Free market indeed. So I (The West) can get richer and You (Africa/S America) can get poorer.

You see those sub saharan people are just really lazy and dumb. They actually are so thick, that they were the one’s who wrote a letter to Spain, France, Uk etc and personally asked to be colonised. They wanted this. Furthermore, they asked that every bank/manufacturer etc etc be run by a Western company because they are so dumb. And even though that money goes back to that Western country and funnily enough NOT the country that the resources belong to, they still want this.

Gary, it’s all their own fault.

Yes, so free market was only created for the Western countries. Western countries wanted all the resources in other countries to get richer and have a better life, so you had to ‘free those market’ for them.

Lol, not EVERYONE silly billy! Now, that my friend would be fair and what would be the fun in having a world like that?

(Sorry I know! Sarcasm not allowed but how could I not!? These sweeties are for realz man!)

great article Dave, lots of food for thought.

I was thinking the other day this also applies to tax evasion a lot.

the left gets annoyed when rich folk avoid paying their taxes, the right prefer to focus on poor people on benefits costing them money. The latter are more happy to accept that the rich have a right to evade taxes, while I think a big part of the left avoids the concept of personal responsibility.

“Pretty much every living thing has to work or starve.”

That was pretty much my point.

I thought you were criticising the essence of the consent of the worker to work – that he has to work or starve. Given that’s the natural state of things, the criticism seemed unfair. I apologise if I misunderstand.

My point is that the transaction is not an even playing field when the seller is selling a product for money, but the buyer needs the product to live!

I don’t feel hard done by that I have to work to pay for life’s necessities. Someone has to put food in my belly. It’s either going to be me in the fields or someone I pay to be in the fields.

There are multiple sellers of necessary products and alternative products that do the same thing, so the buyers can choose between them, improving the terms of the transaction. This means the participants in the transaction are on a less uneven playing field than you appear to imply.

To be fair and they are honest, right winger/liberterians do say they believe in the right to ’self’ and nothing else.

What rubbish.

I was thinking the other day this also applies to tax evasion a lot.

the left gets annoyed when rich folk avoid paying their taxes, the right prefer to focus on poor people on benefits costing them money. The latter are more happy to accept that the rich have a right to evade taxes, while I think a big part of the left avoids the concept of personal responsibility.

Yikes Sunny, will you ever stop mixing up tax avoidance and tax evasion? It’s not a difficult distinction.

This article is incredibly confused.

For a start, there is just no connection between the claims at start of the article – “social liberalism vs. social conservatism, not something that goes on the left-right scale” and where the article ends up going: namely, pointing to lots of apparent hypocrisy in social attitudes.

I say apparent, because a lot of the “hyporcisy” you point to is only such.

To wit:
“Not working is disgraceful if one’s idleness is funded by benefits, but quite alright for trustafarians. Of course we want the ability to divorce, especially if it is our marriage that goes wrong, even while we recognise that the breakdown of the family has ineluctable social consequences.”

Take the first claim about trustafarians vs. benefit claimants. Surely a reason that many think it acceptable to malign the benefit claimant is because their life is funded by the public – the taxpayer – whereas the rich kid is funded by Daddy, and therefore not the public taxpayer. This would appear to be a very important difference, prima facie, and hence leading to the cases being sufficiently different to dispel a charge of hypocrisy.

Take the second claim about divorce. It is not hypocritical to want the ability to divorce because of one set of considerations – not being able to divorce creates great suffering within unhappy marriages – and yet worry about the effects of this extended to society: lots of people divorcing leading to *other* social problems. In the complex real world, it is quite possible to value competing considerations without therefore being a hypocrite.

Similar things could be said of most of the other examples you pick. Sure, in some cases hypocrisy can be exposed if one digs down far enough, but generally you are not digging down very far (again, prima facie a relevant difference between the Islingtonian spliff smoker and the Brixton crack smoker is that the latter robs and the former doesn’t. Sure, at some level this exposes our hyporcisy towards the treatment of drug users by society, but I’m far from convinced that you’ve done the ground work to bring this out).

“The double standards are palpable, and the trouble is, neither side can have it both ways. If we buy into individual freedom – and I for one very much do – then we buy into what it entails.”

Which is what, exactly? That individual freedom has consequences? Well ok we all know that. That allowing individual freedoms creates apparent hypocrisy in our society? Well, erm, maybe, but as I say much of the hypocrisy appears apparent…and I don’t see why hypocritical social attitudes are especially entailed by allowing people to be free. Thus, again, your contentions about social liberalism vs. social conservatism are not fleshed out, nor are they connected to your claims about hypocrisy.

As for this:

“So when we insist on our right to chainsmoke, get pissed and check out adult internet sites – because we can handle it, can’t we? – we logically insist on the right of Tracey Connolly to do just the same, even though she can’t.”

I just don’t really see how it follows from anything that you’ve written, other than in a vague, unarged assertive way.

And it may be worth pointing out that the reason Tracey Connolly can’t do those things is not because of social hypocrisy, or because of conflicts between social liberalism and social conservatism…but because she’s in prison for aiding and abetting the murder of her child.

In sum: not a good piece.

Sorry.

“Yikes Sunny, will you ever stop mixing up tax avoidance and tax evasion? It’s not a difficult distinction.”

Though once we’ve made the distinction, we should remember two things:

1) Dennis Healey’s wise words: the difference between tax avoidance and evasion is the thickness of a prison wall

and

2) Avoidance may be legal in that it complies with the strict letter of the law (in some cases, only very barely and thanks to arachane reasoning processes and the exploitation of unintended loopholes) but it hardly ever complies with the spirit of that law. And note, during the MPs expenses scandal most people were rather UNSATISFIED with the excuse “yeah but it was all within the rules”. Generally, human agents are able to discern an important moral difference between adherence in spirit and in name only.

Thus, tax avoidance may be strictly legal…but that doesn’t mean it’s *right* or *defensible*.

Yikes Sunny, will you ever stop mixing up tax avoidance and tax evasion? It’s not a difficult distinction.

Tim – morally they’re the same to me.

@Paul Sagar – yep.

@OP, I am opposed to supercasinos, lapdancing clubs and 24-hour drinking – and ain’t none of it to do with the morality you outline with your “more Methodist than Marxist” sideswipe. The last time I looked at the evidence (though I welcome correction) supercasinos by their very existence increase the number of people addicted to gambling. The social appeal and the large space offering a massive harvest of punters, not to mention the higher stakes offered, have a hugely damaging effect. Just because one opposes supercasinos, however, doesn’t mean that one thinks gambling should be banned – or that one is blind to the problems caused by the eight bookies in the local town.

As for lapdancing, there’s a whole world of grey area there which can’t be stripped down to (aha) a simple “for” or “against”. I’m not in favour of making it illegal; a stripper has to earn her crust like the rest of us; one way or another we’re all forced to work for someone else’s profit. But I’m not for it, in the abstract. In the morass of repressed aggression and sexuality that tends to infect the men I know who frequent such places, aren’t there important questions to be asked which go beyond the binary yes/no, legalization/prohibition answers to these questions? Same for 24 hour drinking.

Without involving the state, why does it have to be a moral question as to whether one is for or against any of this? Moreover, whose morality are we talking about? You mention people who consider themselves on the Left but are against all of this; it reminds me of the sort of people who consider themselves on the Left, vote Labour their whole lives until switching to the BNP over immigration. The question does fit along left-right lines, when worked out properly; it’s people who are confused – and let’s face it, that’s easy enough – we can’t all be DPhils in political theory or philosophy or economics.

Overall, I think the whole article would have been better leaving out the “left-right” introduction altogether – and as for the rest it would have been better dedicated to a cogent consideration of matters of hegemony rather than hypocrisy. It doesn’t seem to occur to you that even to those of us who aren’t bosses with secretaries that a bit of office nookie seems great, whilst living on a council estate, being unemployed, having a kid and a loser boyfriend and porn as a hobby, seems fucking atrocious. I imagine such a thing probably sounds quite good to the mother and father of Baby P and all.

@19

“Tim – morally they’re the same to me.”

Quite right sir, quite right!

“Thus there are many socialists opposed to supercasinos, lap dancing clubs and 24 hour drinking, on the grounds that such activities are both detrimental to working class communities and carried on for private profit.

I happen think that attitude is wrong, and that the left should back the right of adults of all classes to engage in gambling, voyeurism and prodigious alcohol consumption if they elect so to do, irrespective of whether we approve personally.”

Concerning lap dancing and voyeurism specifically, do you think that such a socialist as yourself maybe perhaps needs to have a think about how their blase attitude towards what you lump under the heading of the rights of adult individuals may impact upon women?

And how statements that appear to contain a lurge bundle of indifference to/unawareness of important feminist issues might be a problem for a self-proclaimed lefty?

[20] I am opposed to supercasinos, lapdancing clubs and 24-hour drinking.

It is irrelevant what individuals think about the pursuit of certain pleasures – surely the relevance of these activities (and this article) is the extent to which OTHERS have rights to prevent them from being made available to consenting adults?

For example, if I was the owner of a casino, lapdancing club or drinking den I wouldn’t give a toss that a percentage of punters objected to these establishments on moral grounds, no, my only concern would be the extent to which I could ply card games, scantily glad lads or lasses or cheap booze to those with a predilection for such things.

Dave Osler points out, correctly in my view, that if it is OK for one then it should be OK for all.

Given that gambling, sex and booze are all timeless the only effect of legal (or moral) prohibition is to increase the level of risk amongst those hell bent on pursuing these particular thrills.
After all, the disaster that is our current drugs policy is there for all to see;
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673609604554/fulltext?rss=yes

@Sunny:

“the left gets annoyed when rich folk avoid paying their taxes, the right prefer to focus on poor people on benefits costing them money.”

- Probably a fair assesment, if we stay in broad-brush territory.

“The latter are more happy to accept that the rich have a right to evade taxes, while I think a big part of the left avoids the concept of personal responsibility.”

OK but how significant is this:

Estimated loss to UK due to benefit cheating: £1 billion p.a.
(source: DWP website, though the figure changes)

Estimated loss to UK through tax avoidance (corporate and individual): £25billion p.a.
(source: TUC Missing Billions report)

Estimated loss to UK through use of tax havens/secrecy jurisdictions (including evasion and avoidance by companies and individuals): £18.5billion
(source: Tax Research UK/BBC Panorama)

Maybe we do all need to do a little self-reflection…but look who is costing us more money…funny how the Daily Mail et al are obsessed with benefit cheats but tax dodgers hardly get a look in…

‘I happen think that attitude is wrong, and that the left should back the right of adults of all classes to engage in gambling, voyeurism and prodigious alcohol consumption if they elect so to do, irrespective of whether we approve personally.”

Thanks! You couldn’t lend me a few quid as well, could you?

[24] without wishing to defend tax dodgers surely the distinction between the two groups highlighted (in terms of public attitude) is that one produces wealth/ jobs while the other doesn’t?

We are essentially saying to the wealth generators you must pay a higher percentage of your income in part so that we can subsidise those without jobs.

Tax dodgers still contribute and perhaps one or two of them feel they are being penalised for their success?
One story I’ve heard over the summer is that some of the high-end wage earners in the Premiership are keen o obtain new contracts in La Liga because the Spanish have more forgiving tax arrangements if like Ronaldo & Co you are earning £150k+ per week.

Great article.

I thought this was interesting @18:

“Thus, tax avoidance may be strictly legal…but that doesn’t mean it’s *right* or *defensible*.”

Much the same argument could be made of taxation itself. Clearly taxation is the insurance policy that stops us all living in caves and fighting each other. But there is no “right” or “wrong” about it – it’s a necessity. We cannot impute moral qualities to the payment or non-payment of particular potential chunks of the tax take. Either it’s enough to stop us all sliding back into the swamp or it isn’t.

I also think there is a lot of misunderstanding about what tax avoidance actually is. It’s not all about millionaires and accountants. Anyone here get free childcare through their workplace on a salary sacrifice scheme? That’s tax avoidance, on the part of both the employer and, probably, you. Do you have a granny who sold her holiday flat in Torquay and found she had no tax to pay on the profit because she’s owned it since 1972? That’s tax avoidance. Someone ticked a box on a form to indicate that “this circumstance applies to me” and therefore didn’t have to pay some tax.

Interesting article. Back in my more socially conservative days I used to make the point that while the middle classes (and yes this is a generalisation) could cope with the rise in drug abuse, sexual promiscuity etc the working classes seemed less able to do so, either due to educational attainment or monetary resources. Back in the days when there was a more “old fashioned” morality and the middle classes at least preached that morality (even if some of the wealthier members didn’t always practice it) there seemed to be less family breakdown, drug abuse etc amongst poorer communities.

Fast forward to the more libertarian me and I still think there’s some truth to this argument. However, the way to deal with it is not to use the state to try and restore some sort of pre-60s morality even if we thought such morality was desirable but to reconstruct the legal and welfare system so that people face the consequences of their actions (not to mention legalising drugs which would sort out the problems of prohibition). So for example if you fill yourself full of heroin you have to pay for treatment. If you give birth to several children you aren’t automatically entitled to special benefits. If you divorce you aren’t automatically entitled to your husband’s or wife’s money or property (unless you contributed towards it). We should also consider moving towards a more restitutional system when punishing criminals.

Finding out that one doesn’t have to pay tax on a transaction one was going to carry out anyway, and specifically structuring one’s transactions to minimise tax, are two rather different things.

Extortion and taxation.

Morally they’re the same to me.

@ uk liberty

Sure it’s rubbish. Roll eyes.

You guys are the modern day saviours of world revolution?? Aha. Maybe come up with a policy which isn’t all about YOU.

Dave Semple: The question does fit along left-right lines, when worked out properly; it’s people who are confused

Then I think the wrong questions are being asked. We cannot ignore the public or how the public react – especially if we want reality based politics as opposed to just political theory.

Paul – don’t deny that benefits cheating costs is vastly less. I was just talking in general terms..

Alix,

ejh gets a lot of what I’m going to say across when he says this:

“Finding out that one doesn’t have to pay tax on a transaction one was going to carry out anyway, and specifically structuring one’s transactions to minimise tax, are two rather different things.”

But to go into a little more detail, you’re confused about a) the possible justifications for tax available and b) what “tax avoidance” may mean.

To take a) first. It is possible to view tax as nothing more than a necessary evil required to prevent people living in caves and fighting each other. Sure.

But it’s possible to view it as substanitally more than that: the mechanism by which the state perhaps rectifies the arbitrary privileges of birth in the name of fairness, perhaps, or how collectively society can undertake mutual endeavours for the benefit of all its citizens, including perhaps especially the worst off. Alternatively it can be seen as the mechanism by which all members of society contribute to the upkeep of not just the bare bones of a minimalist state preventing a decline to fighting, chaos and cave-dwelling, but enabling substantially more than that (educational institutions, cultural institutions, roads, street lighting, defence organisations, healthcare infrastructures…the list is pretty enormous). In turn, tax can be viewed as the way that different members of society contribute to the upkeep of that society which both prevents their being retarded to the state of cave dwelling and significantly enhances the overall quality of life for all members.

Now, lots of those claims are contentious, and some may be incompatible. Our libertarian friends have a lot to say about that. My point is just that your view of tax seems unusally narrow and reductionist: just something we have to pay to avoid cave dwelling? Well perhaps…but then again most significantly perhaps it’s rather more than that. Perhaps, for example, the tax regime of a nation indicates the extent to which the more wealthy are expected to increase proportionally the amount they pay to the social upkeep, hence reflecting a measure of fairness. Perhaps. (I don’t want to get into a fight with libertarians today, so if you all reply to this comment advance warning that i’m too busy to respond back).

Regarding b), a lot of the things that you refer to as tax avoidance just aren’t.

It may be helpful to consider the term “tax compliance”. Tax compliance simply means paying the amount of tax you are legally expected to pay, and no more, according to both spirit and letter of the law.

So in your example of the employee finding out that they are entitled to child care and claiming it…well that’s not tax avoidance (assuming the parent gets some income benefit from the childcare, which is waht I think you mean) because they are entitled to the childcare. The parent is being tax compliant: paying the tax that is expected and due, but no more. The employer is also being tax compliant: there is no expectation that they should pay *more* tax than is due, and in this case their tax liability has been purposefully lowered by the government. Simply reducing one’s tax liability is not (necessarily) tax avoidance, and this is most definitely the case when provisions have been made for people to reduce their tax liability *by* the government.

What is generally referred to as “tax avoidance” (thought it *is* a grey area) is the practice of “aggressive” tax avoidance: for example, Large Multinatinal Bank Inc. paying huge salaries to a team of legal nerds, who study tax law to find archane loopholes, which they then take advantage of by setting up a network of subsidiary companies in offshore tax havens that use legally backed veils of financial secrecy to facilitate activities that would be outlawed in other jurisdictions, creating a huge web of effectively invented paper transactions, all with the purpose of lowering tax liability even though no other genuine economic acitivity is actually facilitated. Such a process was specifically *not* intended by the legislators of the country whose tax is being avoided – hence undertaking it is not tax compliant but (aggresive) tax avoidance.

Similarly, and wealthy individual who wants to lower their tax liability not by the use of officially provided opportunities to lower that liability, but in contravention of the intentions of the tax authorities. Say, for example, by paying a financial adviser large sums of money to establish a system of trusts in an offshore tax haven, where the true identities fo beneficial owners, trustees and guarantors is systematically obscured, allowing our wealthy individual to pay money into a trust and pay it back to themself, thus avoiding the tax that was expected in their home jurisdiction – and again, completely at odds with the intentions of the democratically elected government that set their tax regime in the first place.

Tax avoidance, whilst be nature not something that can be conclusively defined, is generally meant to apply to something quite different from the examples you site, which i’ve tried to highlight are actually cases of tax compliance (which lower tax liability) rather than tax avoidance (which lower tax liability, but against the intentions of those who set the tax law in the first place).

“Paul – don’t deny that benefits cheating costs is vastly less. I was just talking in general terms..”

Oh, sure. But I just find it fascinating that society focuses on the poorest, most socially vulnerable and downtrodden people who also happen to cost us FAR LESS than the richest, least vulnerable and most privileged.

(It was meant as a further stimulus to debate, not a criticism of what you said)

[34] But I just find it fascinating that society focuses on the poorest, most socially vulnerable and downtrodden people who also happen to cost us FAR LESS than the richest, least vulnerable and most privileged.

No, that doesn’t stand up.

The richest don’t cost us anything – they just don’t give enough.

The poor on the other do cost us if we take ‘cost’ to equate with a lack of financial contribution (at least while they are claiming).

Criticising people for not giving enough (either because they cheat, or employ creative accounting) is different to critising people for trans-generational welfare dependency, say, or having lots of kids with no means to support them.

The richest don’t cost us anything – they just don’t give enough.

Bollocks. Property is a social construct, not some kind of natural law. And someone who’s inherited gbp5bn of land represents far more of a claim on The Average British Person’s resources than someone who claims gbp10k a year in benefits.

Tim – morally they’re the same to me.

I assume you don’t pay into a pension then? Or, if you’re self-employed, you don’t keep receipts for business expenditure? And you disapprove of companies spending money on R&D?

All tax avoidance means is paying the amount of tax that you are legally required to, and not more. To say that paying the legally correct amount of tax is morally the same as not paying the legally correct amount of tax is fatuous.

‘Bollocks. Property is a social construct, not some kind of natural law.’

So is tax.

Bollocks. Property is a social construct, not some kind of natural law.

I do wonder how far you want to push this line of thinking. OK, suppose property is a social construct; presumably that means that society (by which of course ‘the state’ is meant, but let’s not press that) can revoke or limit one’s enjoyment of it as it pleases. Do you think the same is true about people’s lives? Is my right to not be killed also a ‘social construct,’ which can be (legitimately) revoked or limited if society/enough people want it to be? Because if not (and I really hope you think not), you’re entirely in agreement that people have rights independently of those rights being granted by society.

“Is my right to not be killed also a ’social construct,’ which can be (legitimately) revoked or limited if society/enough people want it to be?”

Er, yes. Furthermore, the likelihood of this happening varies depending on which society you happen to live in.

Is my right to not be killed also a ’social construct,’ which can be (legitimately) revoked or limited if society/enough people want it to be?

Yes of course it is.

What 40/41 said. The difference is, all human societies recognise *some* kind of qualified-right-not-to-be-killed/taboo-against-killing, whereas the concept of individual property ownership is far less universal.

All rights are social constructs. How could it be otherwise?

However, this particular society has constructed your right not to be killed as inalienable and irrevocable.

So what? Everything (outside a handful of entities in natural science) are a social construct. It doesn’t make these things any less real.

However, this particular society has constructed your right not to be killed as inalienable and irrevocable.

Which society? Not the UK.

Of course I meant moral right there – hence the ‘legitimately’. Take another example, the segregated South. If property is a ‘social construct,’ and the relevant society decides that the correct rules governing property include that black people are prohibited from entering white-run shops, is anyone doing anything wrong here?

Under what circumstances does the UK revoke that right?

@46 – If property is NOT a ’social construct,’ and an individual decides black people are prohibited from entering his shop, what can be done about it?

Answer: Nothing.

Under what circumstances does the UK revoke that right [not to be killed]?

Under the Queen’s peace, when your killer honestly believed you were such a threat that killing you was necessary and proportionate. Or in wartime, when you are a civilian who happens to be located within the lethal area of a bomb or landmine.

“@46 – If property is NOT a ’social construct,’ and an individual decides black people are prohibited from entering his shop, what can be done about it?

Answer: Nothing.”

Nah, lots of things. We can call the individual a prick and refuse to use his shop.

Property is theft. I have a picture of Proudhon as the screensaver on my iPhone.

Wasn’t much consolation when my previous iPhone got knicked though.

[34] property may be a ‘social construct’ but it is a ‘social construct’ that doesn’t cost me anything, unlike contributing toward benefits, which does – that is my point.

If a wealth generator is successful why should we penalise their success?

“property may be a ’social construct’ but it is a ’social construct’ that doesn’t cost me anything”

Um, if you say so.

How much did your telly cost, BTW? Something or not anything?

13. Sunny H personnel responsibiity and 35 a &e charge nurse . Good points

Surely much of the concept of individual freedom comes down to the risk to others.The temperance societies came about because the father of the family could obtain his wages on a Friday drink them by Sunday, causing the wife and children to end up in the workhouse. Alcohol in the 18c to early 20 c centuries played a similar role to making poverty far worse as drugs do today. Much of the Liberal and early Labour social reforms involved in campaigning against the evils of drink.

When looking at peoples freedoms surely there is the case at looking at the adverse impact on the family and neighbours?

The problem with modern day tax is that is so complicated . If we can simplify the tax laws, then the difference between evasion and avoidance would become much clearer.
.

If one is on one’s own, there is total freedom. However, one humans decide to live together to improve their chance of survival a degree of individual freedom is lost .
To be beyond the lore used to mean that the individual no longer had to live according to the wishes of the tribe but also would not be offered protection or assistance. What we have now is a discussion about whether certain people are not making a fair contribution to the tribe. The elders were those people who had already contributed to the tribe and their knowledge helped to maitain it’s survival.
Where we have 2 or 3 generations who have lived on welfare what has been their contribution to the tribe.

What we see now is similar to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, those who develop and use the new technology can obtain massive wealth. Whenever there has been a leap in technology, be it growing cereals, domesticating livestock, irrigation, developing bronze and iron, the wheel, horses, boats , etc those people master it first have massive advantages. Faraday may have laid down the practical proofs of electricity, Clerk Maxwell the mathematical proofs combning electricity and magnetism but it was Eddison and the USA who commercially benefitted first and most of all.

If people say capitalism is awfull , it provides far more socail mobility than feudalism, where a military aristocracy and the monarch rule by might of arms. If we socialism is the answer should the innovative, hard working and honest be more worried than the ignorant, lazy and dishonest?

[53] are you being deliberately obtuse, Neil?

If I want a TV I have to pay for it (obviously) – but if a wealth generator wants a telly I don’t have to pay for his/her TV as well, because that person has paid for it themselves, you see.

On the other hand if somebody buys a TV from their benefits then it cannot be done so without a cost to others.

Surely it is not such a difficult concept to grasp?

“are you being deliberately obtuse, Neil?”

As if!

Telly a bad analogy though, I’ll admit, because there’s no shortage of them. Land, however, is a different matter, as john b pointed out way back upthread.

A&E Charge nurse.

1) Are you sure you want to carry on assuming that all highly-paid rich people are wealth-generators? And if so, who are they generating wealth *for*? A hedge fund, for example, generates wealth…for its investors. It’s hard to see that it does anything above and beyond that.

2) How is it “penalising” the already very well-off to ask them to please pay the amount of contribution to the collective upkeep of society that the democratically elected government levied and intended to be collected, and to attempt to stop them when they decide to withold that contribution and add it to a stash of wealth which is already far in excess of what most people have?

3) As for your maintenance that it’s ok to vitriolicaly attack benefit cheats but not rich tax dodgers, well consider the following:

Yes, tax dodgers add something to the economy whereas benefit cheats don’t add anything, but rather take-out £1billion. Notice, of course, that in effect the tax dodgers are taking out £25billion. Is this latter figure completely negated because of a vague assertion that they are “wealth generators”?

Why can’t they be wealth generators AND pay the £25billion that they are expected to pay? That way society is altogether better off. And it’s not like the tax dodgers would suddently find themselves in the gutter; sure they’d have to pay more for society…but perhaps that is fair remuneration for the underlying social structures which allow them to get wealthy in the first place?

And furthermore, in the case of tax dodging corporations and profit-seeking structures, you may want to consider that if they stopped dodging tax then they would have an incentive to put their efforts into more economically meaningful practices, such as increasing efficiency to lower costs, for example, thus freeing up resources and (maybe) in turn reducing the strain on the natural environment.

I appreciate your point that people are resentful of benefit scroungers because they add nothing to society AS WELL as taking “our” money. But tax dodgers take a hell of a lot more…and do you think it’s fair that a nurse like yourself who can’t afford to pay a financial adviser to avoid tax is therefore not facing a level playing field with the already richer lawyer who can pay an accountant to move his money into offshore trusts, and thus avoid tax in a way that’s not open to you because you are not rich enough to pay a financial adviser to do it?

There’s a lot more going on here than you seem to realise…

Dan,

OK, suppose property is a social construct; presumably that means that society (by which of course ‘the state’ is meant, but let’s not press that) can revoke or limit one’s enjoyment of it as it pleases. Do you think the same is true about people’s lives? Is my right to not be killed also a ’social construct,’ which can be (legitimately) revoked or limited if society/enough people want it to be? Because if not (and I really hope you think not), you’re entirely in agreement that people have rights independently of those rights being granted by society.
…
Of course I meant moral right there – hence the ‘legitimately’. Take another example, the segregated South. If property is a ’social construct,’ and the relevant society decides that the correct rules governing property include that black people are prohibited from entering white-run shops, is anyone doing anything wrong here?

It was indeed morally wrong, in my view, for the states and their racist supporters to decide that blacks were inferior, that blacks were a threat, and to interfere not only the freedoms of blacks but also those whites who weren’t so bigoted and paranoid – Jim Crow laws, the Black Codes, de facto segregation, demolishing of properties and communities, were all wrong. But the racists believed they were morally in the right. Dangerous ground to fight on, morals.

As I wrote earlier, we in the UK (and EU) don’t have an absolute legal right not to be killed. The right to life merely demands an investigation of your death if it is suspicious (or if an agent of the state did it) and a trial if a person is suspected of criminal involvement in it. It doesn’t say you must never be killed.

I don’t believe we have a moral right not to be killed – I don’t think there are moral rights, I don’t believe rights are independent from society, they are granted by society. On the other hand, to me it is axiomatic (this saves me from having to justify it*) that we each should be able to enjoy a freedom from interference. My freedom to swing my fist ends before the tip of your nose. My freedom of speech does not extend to falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded place with the intention of causing harm. We can build all sorts of legal rights on top of that foundation, which mediate (if that’s the right word) between the freedoms of each individual.

Should a shopkeeper be allowed to bar whoever he likes for whatever reason? I’m uncomfortable with prohibiting him from doing so. If blacks and whites had been able to enforce their freedoms at the time I wonder if we would see the same America today. Here in my ivory tower I imagine blacks would have been better off if racists had been allowed to bar whoever they like, but there were no Jim Crow laws, Black Codes etc, because non-racists and blacks would have had the advantage.

* Or, more seriously, I think it stems from the negative form of the Golden Rule – do not treat others as you do not wish to be treated. Of course that presumes that we all agree with the Golden Rule. Again, blacks wouldn’t have counted for this purpose to those small minded bigots.

[57] Are you sure you want to carry on assuming that all highly-paid rich people are wealth-generators – they ARE wealth generators (by definition) although I accept the extent to which ‘wealth’ is distributed amongst others is another matter.

And if so, who are they generating wealth *for* – that sounds a bit like envy, personally I do not think I have any right to interfere with what others do with cash they have made?

How is it “penalising” the already very well-off to ask them to please pay the amount of contribution to the collective upkeep of society – trickier to answer, but the more you earn more the more you are expected to pay (in percentage terms), some might see this as unfair?

As for your maintenance that it’s ok to vitriolicaly attack benefit cheats but not rich tax dodgers – no, that’s a bit unfair, I’m not saying its OK to vitriolically attack anybody, just that wealth generator are often portrayed as ‘greedy’ when they still contribute substantial sums of money to the wider community (even if they try and bend the rules to beat draconian tax demands).

Let’s take the Millibands as an example – like most of us it seems they want to hang on to as much cash as possible.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1151892/New-questions-David-Milibands-property-empire.html
Others might argue that the proceeds from the sale of the family home should been passed onto the wider community, I assume this is Sunny’s position judging by his comments above.

But I can’t criticise the Millibands too much – my family did exactly the same thing with our parents estate (since the value exceeded the then £250k limit for inheritance tax).

I have paid taxes for many years (so has the missus) – but maybe some think we should be giving more since we are guilty of inheritance tax avoidance?