tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1562283827976999003.post2958672394948712731..comments2013-09-19T14:03:38.399+01:00Comments on The Red Banker: CONSERVATIVES: JAMES SHOOTS BACK!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02635749385748660522noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1562283827976999003.post-22296763253493437212013-06-17T15:26:16.169+01:002013-06-17T15:26:16.169+01:00Hi, James
No problem, it is I who thank you for h...Hi, James<br /><br />No problem, it is I who thank you for having taken such an interest in this discussion.<br /><br />With regards to the actual content of the disagreement, yes, I will be replying soon-ish and letting you know just how wrong you are, even when you're right! :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02635749385748660522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1562283827976999003.post-21652873390965442032013-06-13T18:05:57.636+01:002013-06-13T18:05:57.636+01:00Hi Fred,
Thanks for posting this.
If you’ll per...Hi Fred,<br /><br />Thanks for posting this. <br /><br />If you’ll permit an addendum to my previous comments, I’d like to sum up my argument: <br /><br />Your views seem to differ from those of most left-wingers in that you view socialism as a vehicle for advancing middle-class interests. Clearly, you are not alone in this belief: I remember reading an article by a left-wing columnist (it might have been Robert Reich), in which he lamented the left’s failure to persuade the middle-classes that their interests would be best served by siding with the poor against the rich. <br /><br />To my mind, this is counter-intuitive. The welfare state isn’t designed to serve middle-class interests, but rather to redistribute our wealth: we pay more in tax than we receive in benefits and government services. Our support for it (although we might disagree as to how it should best achieve its goals) is therefore primarily altruistic rather than practical in nature. <br /><br />I understand that you also believe that the middle-classes are declining, and that we need to collectivise and redistribute the wealth of the richest members of society in order to avoid losing ground. <br /><br />My take on the matter is that this would be disastrous. Punitive rates of taxation would exacerbate the brain-drain of top performers to countries with less exorbitant tax rates. Multinational corporations and members of the leisured elites would flee abroad, and be eagerly welcomed by foreign governments who would recognise them as net contributors. Radically socialist policies would also risk destroying investor confidence in the British economy. I understand that France is experiencing some of these problems now, although Hollande’s policies are more moderate than those which you envisage. <br /> <br />Moreover, these sort of policies would create a dangerous precedent, and set the government on a slippery slope to the collectivisation of the middle-classes’ own wealth. This is one of the reasons why the middle-classes have historically been so resistant to socialism.<br /> <br />It’s worth remembering that the income tax was itself, introduced as an emergency measure in Britain to pay for the Napoleonic Wars (there’s a possibly apocryphal story that the government sought to expunge all records of it after the event so that their shame wouldn’t be known to future generations). Gladstone seriously considered abolishing it as late as the 1860s. Today, it has become a universally accepted part of our tax system, and has risen to rates which its creators never envisaged.<br /><br />The natural tendency of any government is towards growth, and once they've sunk their teeth into a new source of tax revenues you'll have a devil of job weaning them off of it.(I understand there’s an Oscar Wilde quote about this: “the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy”.)<br /><br />Anyhow, looking forward to your reply to tell me how wrong I am… <br />Jamesnoreply@blogger.com