Here’s your starter for ten in our Saturday slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…
In his recently published book, 22 Days in May, David Laws writes,
The coalition needs to redefine what fairness means. Fairness cannot mean just maintaining people above an arbitrary income line, whatever their personal circumstances. Fairness means giving people the educational and employment opportunities to ensure that they are not dependent on an over-mighty state and trapped in dead-end lives.
Agree? Disagree?
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48 Comments
The problem with “fairness” is precisely that everyone redefines it to mean what they want it to mean. Fairness means no more than “what I want” as opposed to “what the others want”. Whenever I read or hear a politician arguing for fairness, I switch off because I know it’s a lazy argument.
The underlying message of everyone who argues for fairness is:
1. I am in favour of fairness
2. Those who disagree with me are therefore against fairness
3. You don’t agree with unfairness, do you?
4. Therefore, support me.
Fairness would only be meaningful in political discourse if there was anyone arguing against it. Everyone says their opponents don’t want it but those opponents would not, of course, agree. They would just define fairness differently.
I think, in this context, fairness is equal treatment by the state. But this merely shifts the question to what ‘equal’ means. Think of taxation, for example. If A earns £100k and B earns £10k, what deduction for taxes constitutes, “equal treatment”? Both pay £10k? Both pay 10%? Both pay 10% on anything above £20k?
I think, actually, it is probably the former, but this is clearly outrageous. TBH I’ve never been much convinced by having ‘fairness’ as a value. I think there will be too much disagreement about what constitutes ‘fair’. It’s subjective.
Disagree.
It’s another straw person argument. Who is saying that there is a policy based on arbitrary income lines? Systems of social security and social insurance are (or should be) based on an assessment of the income required to maintain a given standard of living within a particular social context. Some of the rates set in the UK can be considered pretty marginal (ie some analysts consider they don’t always provide an income sufficient to achieve a minimum standard).
Even where discussion is based on something like the proportion of households below 60% of median income that is about the income required to allow adequate social participation. It may be a consensus based definition of poverty but it isn’t arbitrary.
If Laws had say that policy shouldn’t *only* be about maintaining income but should also be about creating opportunity then that is fair enough.
Giving Laws the benefit of the doubt that he is not asking us to choose between the two models but saying we need – in trite terms – to provide both a “ladder” and a “safety net” then I absolutely agree with him.
Of course the question is then how do you do it. A state that is focussed on opportunity is a very different beast from the one we currently have. An opportunity society would go much further even than the Lib Dems’ current policies in redistributing wealth, but would spend much of the money providing infrastructure (or funding other bodies who will provide it) needed to enable social mobility – schools, housing and transport for example – rather than just giving people cash handouts.
There’s precious little in the way of “giving people … employment opportunities” at the moment.
But given the propensity of this government to twist words perhaps it’s a new euphemism for giving people the sack…
There are times when we can define fairness more exactly than just a form of words or platitude.
For example getting 23.0% of the vote and only 57 seats is clearly unfair compared to the other parties getting 29% of the vote and 258 seats, and 36% of the vote and 306 seats. (This should be the basis of the Yes to AV campaign)
But whenever a politician starts out a soundbite by saying something cannot just be x but must be x and y, then you can be certain x is going to get hammered and lessened. x in this case being welfare if you really need it spelled out.
The public also instinctively feels some things to be unfair and David Laws should know by now that MPs expenses are one of those red hot issues particularly in a time of cuts and job losses.
So I think instead of helping the right of the Conservative Party by advocating tax cuts for the middle classes in a time of austerity and trying to upstage every Liberal Democrat MP with his book tour and interviews and ‘helpful’ suggestions, it might be ‘fair’ if he had the sense to wait in dignified silence until his extremely serious expenses misdemeanors have been fully investigated.
Completely disagree with the premise that we should “redefine fairness”. Tilting at windmills does not make for a good communications strategy.
Laws would be wise to stay away from associating “fairness” from rolling back the state. He might find at the next election that people associate Labour with the kind of fairness where everyone gets their “fair share”, while the Lib Dems believe, “I won, he lost, fair and square – and to the winner the spoils.”
Julian has it exactly right. It’s a lazy argument made by politicians who haven’t got anything meatier to say.
David is right when he says: “Fairness cannot mean just maintaining people above an arbitrary income line, whatever their personal circumstances.” in so far as that statement goes.
However it isn’t a particularly useful statement!
He is mixing up the rather inexact word ‘fairness’, with definitions of poverty.
I agree that ‘fairness’ is about more than just keeping people above the poverty line, but my worry is that David and others might mean is that we should not bother to aim to keep people abov the poverty line.
What we should be doing is having a welfare state sufficient to keep people above the poverty line and improve equality of opportunity through better education, health etc. and through restructuring the tax and benefits in a way that encourages people to work.
I would be very concerned if David, Nick or anyone else in the party thinks you can drop the first of these three and just substitute the latter two.
Fairness does mean something. “It’s not fair” is a complaint which, from adults as well as children, deserves an answer. It’s not fair in each new generation that some peope inherit great fortunes they have done nothing themselves to create, earn, save or make, while others inherit nothing at all during their lifetime.
David Laws, like so many others, has a blind spot about the vastly unequal receipt of gifted and inherited wealth in each new generation. He talks only of educational and employment opportunities. He ignores entirely the opportunities provided by the ownership of capital.
Talk of social mobility all too often takes as given the existing starting position of ownership of wealth. The point is to change that starting position. A few years ago Rupert Murdoch gave each of his children £50,000,000 to be getting on with. They could have managed with less! Every one would find a cash basic minimum UK Universal Inheritance of £10,000 helpful, financed by and subject to an Inheritance Tax reformed into a Capital Donor Tax in tandem with and deductible from a progressive Lifetime Unearned Capital Receipts Tax.
Parents and grandparents who are in a position to do so, do give money to their children directly or from trust funds, often at the age of 25, which is considered to be an age of reasonable financial maturity. It is ridiculous to say that “handouts” in the form of inheritance of capital are not helpful in enabling social mobility, in addition to schools, housing and transport.
Fairness means tackling asset welfare as well as income welfare – not hiding the fact of gross asset inequality in each new generation under a taboo or looking at it from afar with a telescope held to a blind eye.
@Dane ‘Every one would find a cash basic minimum UK Universal Inheritance of £10,000 helpful, financed by and subject to an Inheritance Tax reformed into a Capital Donor Tax in tandem with and deductible from a progressive Lifetime Unearned Capital Receipts Tax’
so your argument is that if I work hard, pay my taxes and want to give some money to my son, I should not be allowed to do so. The money should go to someone who might squander it and who has done nothing deserve it rather than simply existing?
The most recent post over at the Social Liberal Forum is well worth reading:
http://bit.ly/ew1pi9
Sums it up well.
We need to break the link between “fairness” and “equality”, especially when we use equality as shorthand for equality of outcome, which itself is a euphemism for equality of wealth or income. For one thing, we need to “equalise” issues such as leisure and income (if I work 70 hours a week, and so have an income twice as high as somebody working 35 hours a week, “fairness” should not see wealth redistributed); similarly, we need to “equalise” work-satisfaction (if you work in a tough, grubby job for a high salary, while I get paid minimum wage to test sofas, no wealth redistribution is justified). What is more, if Paul McCartney can made millions happy over half a century, whereas some talentless hack in Camden can’t even fill the guest list at the Dublin Castle, there is no reason why the former Beatle should have his wealth redistributed to the no-hoper.
Darren: “fairness is equal treatment by the state.”
Absolutely! But “treatment by the state” does not mean – in fact fundamentally runs against – the State intervening to redistribute income. One could argue for providing “fair” services (equally accessible to all) but not wealth redistribution.
Anthony Aloysius St: “There’s precious little in the way of “giving people … employment opportunities” at the moment.”
True – and heaven forbid we should start on make-work schemes – but providing decent basic education so that we bring an end to the tragedy of a quarter of school-leavers being functionally illiterate and innumerate, and so basically worthless in the labour market, might in the long-run give people far better employment opportunities than they have now.
Jon Walls: “people associate Labour with the kind of fairness where everyone gets their “fair share”,”
Change the final words for “equal share” and you may be right. But equality and fairness are not the same, as I’ve noted.
Dane/SMcG: The inheritance tax issue is a fascinating one. Why is giving one’s daughter a hundred thousand pounds taxable, but investing a hundred thousand pounds in her education is not taxable, even though the latter will probably make her richer. What if I invested in setting up a company for her? This may be differently taxed again and yet she might be more productive as an entrepreneur than as a scholar. And why is it that gifting a child money is considered unfair, whereas gifting a child good looks, or brains, or a decent upbringing – all of which are probably far more influential than raw cash in determining outcomes for individuals – is not? I’m afraid the Inheritance Tax argument really doesn’t stack up.
Also, Dane, when you say “Rupert Murdoch’s children… could have managed with less!”, that’s a value-judgement, and as it’s not your money, it’s not yours to make. After all, if they invested the money in bulding companies that created jobs and provided people with goods they want at a good price, it may be that they could have done better with more.
Blimey! 495 words! Must be the weekend.
Disagree.
Notice the insinuation of the word arbitrary! He wouldn’t use the word when he says he wants to improve social mobility. To what arbitrary level would that be then?
Can you imagine this discussion in Victorian times. Well Charles Dickens tackling poverty is all very well but social mobility is the answer, not feeding the poor or housing the homeless.
It is all rather odd. At the last general election we criticised Labour for failing to narrow the gap between the rich and poor, but now what? It looks as though the ground is being laid to widen it further. it helps if you start disbelieving the IFS, of whom we were perfectly happy to believe when they criticised the last Labour government.
All this has happened without a debate in the party. There is not much debate about wanting social mobility. We all want that. But now it is clear that the leadership of the Lib Dems want to achieve this without tackling income inequality. This is what we should have debated before the general election. The Spirit Level (see http://tinyurl.com/2uz985r) shows compelling evidence that this is very hard to acheive.
Samuel Johnson must be spinning in his grave, regressive is progressive, unfair is fair, for disabled see scrounger and god knows what betrayal means nowadays and as for the word ‘liberal’ ………
This is an excellent debate. Thank you for starting it. I hope our Ljb Dem MPs see this and begin to understand the hornets nest that is stirred up by their constant use of the word ‘fairness’. It’s an ideological argument which is impossible to win on the doorstep due to the plethora of interpretations of it.
Strongly agree. Surprisingly, we no longer live in Dickensian England. Therefore, marginal income transfers to the poor are less useful. For instance, instead of renting a larger apartment for their large family, the recipient may buy another Sky Sports channel. It is more useful that the objective conditions exist such that the (random) placement of a person in a family at birth matters as little as possible for their future development. This is better achieved by spending lots of money in primary and secondary education than in spending lots of money in unconditional benefits.
As for the Spirit Level book, the first line of the Amazon blurb says it all about their persistent scam act based on the conflation of correlation and causation. “Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan?” The answer is, of course, not income equality, but racial and ethnic homogeneity. We can get a society as trusting as Japan’s if we just behave in the racist way that characterises Japanese society, and certainly expelling ethnic minorities to achieve Japanese or Norwegian levels of ethnic homogeneity would reduce (British) poverty and (British) income inequality. Does this make it a sound policy? Perhaps not.
” Fairness cannot mean just maintaining people above an arbitrary income line, whatever their personal circumstances. Fairness means giving people the educational and employment opportunities to ensure that they are not dependent on an over-mighty state and trapped in dead-end lives”
So how does this new definition of fairness relate to the disabled who have no real hope of employment opportunities and are dependent on the state, social mobility for this vast majority of the disabled is a lottery win.
If we except that this is what ‘fairness’ means, how do we not be unfair by default to the disabled? after all “Fairness cannot mean just maintaining people above an arbitrary income line”
Fairness? –
Did you know that there is a hearing in progress at the Old Bailey as to whether Elliot Morley and his friends will get a fair trial due to the media exposure? On legal aid of course…………….
@Alex M “If Laws had said that policy shouldn’t *only* be about maintaining income but should also be about creating opportunity then that is fair enough.”
I agree the David Laws quote could be read the way you’ve described, but it isn’t how I read it. When he said: “Fairness cannot mean *just* maintaining people above an arbitrary income line”, I took that to mean that we should continue to maintain people above an arbitrary income line.
(It would be good to know for sure. @Mark Pack: have you considered asking David Laws if he’d like to do a series of questions like the IFS just did?)
What I read Laws as saying, is that welfare should continue, but, where we have extra resources, we should put them into improving opportunity, not just in raising that minimum provision.
I have a similar interpretation of Nick Clegg’s recent speech. When Nick talked about social mobility, some thought this meant creating a meritocracy, where the successful become rich, and the unsuccessful are thrown in the gutter. That he wants a competitive society, where mobility can move you down, as well as up.
That’s not how I interpret Nick at all. The policies he has championed in government have been the 10k tax threshold, the Universal Credit, and the Pupil Premium. All these policies are designed to help those at the bottom to get out of poverty.
This doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game, where one person who gets out of long-term unemployment autmoatically pulls another down into unemployment in his place. It can be, and should be, a set of policies to draw everyone who wants, out of dependency, and into the dignity of providing for themselves.
“The coalition needs to redefine what fairness means.”
You bet it does! Much like the way the Rector of Stiffkey needed to redefine what sin means.
@Edward – I guess this isn’t the thread to debate quality of the argument advanced in the Spirit Level (@Mark Pack reviewed it back in the summer and there was a thread discussing it then).
One of the interesting things about “the Spirit Level” debate is the vociferousness with which commentators from the right have sought to discredit it. The Snowdon book which seeks to rebut TSL, for example, is published by an outfit with strong associations with the libertarian Cato Institute. The same can be said of Saunders’ Policy Exchange paper. The critics accuse Wilkinson and Pickett of peddling socialism and therefore the argument should be discounted.
If they’d read the book properly they’d know two things (i) that it isn’t *their* argument. The book is a popular summary of research that has been going for the last 30 years. There are literally hundreds of academic studies that lend support the argument being advanced. TSL just assembles them in one place and brings them to a wider audience, and (ii) the authors of TSL are perfectly aware of the difference between causation and correlation, both being internationally recognised professors in public health/epidemiology. They are careful in the argument to steer a course around the issues of causation and correlation. Some of the argument is circumstantial, and causal mechanisms are yet to be fully documented, they are open about that.
Surely the more important point is that the book says nothing that is out of line with current LibDem policy. And Nick Clegg, along with other LibDem Candidates/MPs, signed The Equality Trust’s pledge before the election committing to seeking to reduce income inequality. But I guess we should be wary of taking the signing of pledges before the election to indicate a principled commitment to a particular course of action.
[And before anyone feels moved to point out that I’m guilty of the same failing as I have suggested other commentators in this debate suffer from (not explicitly declaring my position), I’m a membed of Equality Bristol, affiliated to The Equality Trust].
Alex, I agree with what you say, but I do not think Nick signed the Equality pledge. I remember looking at it a number of times to see who did. Lynne Featherstone did for example.
However I have not hear Nick Clegg refer to it once, and one of his advisers Richard Reeves is a stern critic of it.
On the other hand Demos produced a Lib Dem book on inequality in which David Laws writes a forward in which he hints that he supports the findings of the Spirit Level.
See http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/wealthofopportunity. You can get a free download of it on this webpage.
Disagree.
I know what I think is fair. And I don’t want governments patronising me by explicitly imposing their own interpretation.
@Geoffrey Payne – Thanks. I stand corrected. A number of LibDem MPs did go as far as signing The Equailty Trust pledge, but Nick Clegg wasn’t one of them. I could have sworn he was. So there you go. And thanks for the reference.
“SMcG”
I do not say that you should not be allowed to give money to your son.
Give the money to your son! All you would have to pay in the way of tax on that luxury expenditure is 10% Capital Donor Tax – half the rate of 20% VAT on ordinary expenditure!
Your son would only pay more tax in addition to the 10 per cent Capital Donor Tax you had paid if and when his total lifetime unearned receipts exceeded the 10 per cent starting band of the Lifetime Unearned Capital Receipts Tax, because, under the Universal Inheritance proposal, the former tax would be deductible from the latter..
And if he were under 25 he would also receive his UK Universal Inheritance on his 25th birthday, to be clawed back to some extent by the Lifetime Unearned Capital Receipts Tax if and when his total unearned capital receipts exceeded the 10 per cent starting band.
Tom Papworth
There is no reason to redistribute Paul McCartney’s wealth to a no-hoper. That would be a wealth tax, which can only ever be a tax on notional income, rather than redistrtibuting wealth. But there is a reason to redistribute, in the interest of fairness in the next generation, the receipt of gifted and inherited wealth between the children of Paul McCartney and the children of the no-hoper. That is a big distinction.
Investing a hundred thousand pounds in one’s daughter’s education could perfectly well be taxable too! Expenditure on private education could be subject to VAT at 20 per cent so that the proceeds could be used to reduce the sizes of classes in state schools. (A bit of a distraction!)
Gifting a child money is not unfair. But for a child to receive vastly more gifted and inherited wealth than others of its generation is not only unfair to them but is something that we can do something about – unlike looks or brains. As it is, the unnecessarily unfair financial advantage is often added to the other unavoidable advantages in a way that seriously reduces equality of opportunity and social mobility.
I have every right to judge that Rupert Murdoch’s children could have managed with less than £50,000,000 to be getting on with in order that other peoples’ children who would otherwise never recieve any gifted or inherited capital could inherit a basic minimum UK Universal Inheritance of £10,000 ( less than ten per cent of the average wealth of every adult and child in the country). Rupert Murdoch’s children are not the only people who can invest in building companies or who can start businesses of their own.
I find it difficult to believe that “Fairness” is such a topic of discussion about everything except the political system! My experience as a Unitary Councillor is that the electoral system is blatantly unfair. Astonishingly I haven’t been able to find anyone that disagrees with my statement. Please fine a person that thinks this. I would love to meet this odd ball! I have spoken to ordinary residents, MP’s, Council Leaders, Officers etc. All agree that the current system is blatantly unfair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So shouldn’t politicians firstly make the political system merit based rather than money based as a primary first action on the road to a fair society?
Regards,
Cllr Simon Killane,
My Website: http://simonkillane.mycouncillor.org.uk
@Alex M – o h dear, the best you can come up with to defend the Spirit level is that you dont like the people who have criticised it.
Why not actually address the issues they raise that the spirt level uses hand picked statistics which in many cases are flawed anyway. Do you really think, for example, that the differnce in murder rate between the US and UK is caused by their greater inequality? Why have murder rates dropped in the US while inequality has increased?
Why do the authors use Imprisonement rates not crime rates where there is no link?
@SMcG – I wasn’t suggesting that I don’t like the people involved, I’ve never met them.
I was suggesting that some of the critique of the The Spirit Level originates from individuals and organisations who are philosophically predisposed to reject its main argument, however well evidenced it might be. To deny that that is a factor in the debate would be implausible. But equally it would be unacceptable to suggest that critique should be dismissed because it is infused with a particular set of values that are not shared. Some of the statistics that have been invoked as rebutting the arguments of TSL may be correct in themselves, but they address a different point (for example by not focusing on developed countries only) and so are talking at cross-purposes with TSL rather than effectively engaging with TSL in the way the authors think they do.
I’d be very happy to explore the debate triggered by the Spirit Level at greater length. To do so would require more space than we have here. I prefaced my comment with the observation that this thread wasn’t the place to debate it, because it would take things off topic. Maybe it justifies starting another thread?
Alex M – what you seem to be hinting at is that random, often irrelevant, discrediting tactics have been aimed from the right, in much the same way as the now itself rather discredited campaign against climate change scientists. This is very much the way the US right, and increasingly our own UK Right Wing operates. I think, SMcG has to be careful how much credence he places on such attacks.
I think there is no one universal declaration on fairness but there has to be a Liberal Democrat in `Coalition Agreement’ working definaiion that is equal to the paramount task of Government over this five years of new Parliament.
There are evident signs of policy work in progress>:
1.`Fair Taxes’–to assuage the yoke of unfairness of the yoke of 13 yaers of past governnance that claimed fairness but instead increased the burden of taxation on the least off.
2.`Far Votes’-AV is the best step forwrard and must be acceded as being the only constituional voting on the table at the time of the binding `Colaition Agreement’.
3.Fairness to Students Fee paters as the pragmatics of the `C
3. Fairness to Student Fee Payers and better amendment to aid the struggle of the least off financially beleagured students to recognise their vulnerable situation before the Parliament Vote on 15/12.
4.Fairness in new curtailment of unfetttered bonuses to bankers and prospect of Ireland Euro bailout to the tune of 19 million Euros, whilst students are being asked to pay per capita £27K in repayment of loans over a 3 year degree.
Patrick Smith,
Fair taxes, yes, but the yoke of unfairness goes back a lot further than the last 13 years with the tax free inheritance of agricultural, business and shareholding assets and lifetime gifts. There is no fairness or equality of opportunity in each new generation when some people inherit billions and others inherit nothing during their lifetime.
@tim13 – really? have you read any of the criticisms of the Spirt level – such as that from the Policy Exchange? what on earth has climate change got to do with it?
To be frank, I don’t think there is a need to “redefine” fairness. I am a Liberal Democrat because I believe that everyone should have equal opportunities, what they do with those opportunities is down to them, they should not be dictated to by the State or anyone else for that matter. No one should be a victim of their Post Code.
The argument contradicts itself. If fairness means giving people something as a right then it is necessarily dependent on the state to administer the giving. This is the inherent hypocrisy of the liberal democrat attack on the oversized state. Fairness requires redistribution in a capitalist market system but somehow whenever the state engages in such a redistribution it is accused by liberals of being authoritarian. In order to solve the problem of the over-mighty state relegating people to dead-end lives dependency culture is to be tackled by offering starvation and homelessness as an alternative in order to help people to break their dependency. This is the result of the false claim that the benefit system should be a hand-up rather than a hand-out. The only tool that the benefit system has to engineer such an effect is the removal of income. To do what is being asked in offering a hand-up is dependent on the provision of employment and nothing else.
The problem with fairness as a measure is that many arguments can be made to sound fair that are not in any way fair.
For example; is it fair that the taxes of hard working families should pay to keep the feckless in homes that they themselves cannot afford?
Or;
Is it fair that those who earn a taxable wage shoulld pay their share of taxes? And; is it fair that those taxes should be spent primarily on keeping a roof over the heads of poor children?
In a society that has decided, as ours has done since 1979, that it requires between 5% and 10% to remain unemployed as a flexible pool of labour isn’t it fair that those people should share in the wealth that their idleness and career sacrifice has helped to create?
Being treated equally by the state? Sounds fair, like equal opportunity sounds fair, but then this would mean flat tax, no health care, no state education, no socialised care of any sort, no state pension. Arguing for fairness implies intrinsic inequality that needs rectification which in turn implies unequal treatment by the state.
Fair taxes begs the question of what is fair in taxation. It is accepted as fair to lift the burden of taxation from the lowest paid altogether but this has created a segregation of society that removes the dignity afforded by paying your fair share into society. The low paid have been lumped in with those on benefits as have council house tenants as being considered recipients of charity rather than equal contributors to the social fabric. A fairer solution would be for the state to require higher wages be paid. Or to provide meaningful employment for all. In similar terms social mobility is percieved to be a measure of fairness when it is anything but. Dignity at all levels of society is a marker of fairness. Social mobility as a desire is personal. The state nor any other social structure should impede it and the state is responsible for ensuring there is no blockage. Offering it as a marker of fairness is wrong in that it implies that social mobility is the morally correct goal for other individuals not only oneself. If we open the doors to absolutely free social mobility then those who remain at the bottom only have themselves to blame and are therefore deserving of their lesser life choices. To some ears that probably sounds fair too.
Should we agree with Clegg who in turn agrees with Sen that fairness requires equality of capability (even though all of the policies that he is bringing to fruition in government mitigate against any such thing)?
Or, with Rawls that justice requires the fair distribution of primary goods and that fair means equal distribution, unless inequality is to the direct benefit of the worst off? If as liberals you agree with either of those views of fairness, who would you consider responsible for ensuring that such fairness is enacted? If it is the state, does that not lead to all of us being dependent on the state? Is it fair to then define the lives of those who are dependent on the state as living dead end lives when fairness is dependent on state action?
As is always the case with liberals, you argue for justice and fairness until the point at which it requires action that will interfere with the status quo. When required to act in the inerests of fairness by being in power you argue that fairness should be changed not the state. When the Spirit Level offers tangible evidence to help your cause that equality is in fact a good in itself you go out of your way to discredit it because it is politically expedient to do so and would require state action. The only liberal egalitarianism ever enacted by our state has come from the Labour party but they are ‘authoritarians’ so you somehow manage to convince yourself that those parts of the egalitarian cause must in fact be wrong. Fair enough you have had good ideas with the welfare state and the NHS but how are you going to feel when history judges you to have destroyed both of them?
Sorry, SMcG, I was talking of attacks by the US right, giving climate change as a good example of their attempts to discredit writers, scientists etc in a move to weaken their theories. Do you not think this is the case? Or are you just unconvinced of Spirit Level arguments anyway – in which case you may as well just say it straight out?
Do I understand you to be arguing, JRC, from the position of a Labour supporter? I am not quite clear whether you are merely stating two (or more) sides of a debate, or whether you are taking a particular position yourself?
Tim13, play the course not the man.
The comments so far amply demonstrate that everyone wants fairness but everyone defines it differently. To take two examples, is it fair for students who benefit from higher education to pay for it? Or is it fair for today’s students to receive free education like previous generations did? Both could be thought fair but we can’t decide the issue by “redefining what fairness means”.
Or, Julian, one could claim to view the individual as autonomous and therefore determine that each individual is entitled to the minimum education necessary to function autonomously within the prevailing social structures.
In a world where 45% of the population are required to have at least degree level education to fully function as autonomous individuals then that minimum education would include higher education. As such its a matter of justice. That would be the conclusion of a liberal view of the self but unfortunately the Liberal Democrats have decided that our society can’t afford liberalism and we must all become neo-liberal libertarians instead.
There are conflicting views of fairness. The choice is the same as it ever was: Do you see fairness from the perspective of those who are deprived by inequality or those who are the beneficiaries of inequality and therefore must be required to give back? The Liberal Democrats chose the former before the election but are now enacting legislation motivated by the latter.
“JRC”
Why is it that people with your views so seldom do or say anything about the redistribution of the cumulative lifetime receipt of unearned gifted and inherited wealth?
As a Liberal, I demand greater equality of opportunity in education, health and the inheritance of wealth in each new generation and also the continued privatisation of all those activities other than those which either cannot or ought not (e.g. defence, police, education, health) to be rationed by price. As well as an Asset Welfare State (with the judicious positive redistribution of the inheritance of wealth in each new generation) there must of course also be an Income Welfare State safety net. The larger the redistribution of inheritance in each new generation, the fewer people in each generation will have to rely upon the income safety net.
Why do I see so little talk of redistributing inheritance in Labour circles? I will be attending the Compass Oxford event this evening and will be interested to ask. At the same time I will try to raise the UK Universal Inheritance proposal, similar to Stuart White’s citizen’s inheritance proposal (he will be speaking) and the Fabian Society’s (before it was smothered by New Labour) February 2000 “A Capital Idea”, .
What is it? Every UK-born UK citizen gets a basic minimum inheritance of £10,000 (less than 10 per ent of average wealth of every adult and child in the UK) at 25, financed by and subject to a reformed flat rate 10 per cent tax on the luxury expenditure of giving and bequeathing capital deductible from a progressive tax from 10 per cent upwards on the cumulative lifetime receipt of unearned gifted and inherited capital. Banks would lend to all over 18 against the certain receipt of £10,000 at 25. Those who go to university use it for tuition fees (with subsidised interest rates). Those who don’t go to university use it for something else (with subsidised interest rates for any other approved purposes) – e.g.business start up, home ownership, relocation..
So that no one rear group loses out by too much, introduce it over a five year period – during which the Universal Inheritance would increase from £2,000 at 25 in 2011, say, £4,000 in 2012 up to £10,000 in 2015. Once it is established at £10,000, political debate may increase it and the tax rates further.
Opportunity for all! A Liberal political ideology of Popular Capitalism in each new generation instead of the widely and often subconsciously accepted Conservative political ideology of unbridled Dynastic Capitalism and inequality of opportunity cascading down the generations. Are socialist activists and commentators uncomfortable with it for personal or political reasons, or both? I can see a Conservative party doing a Disraeli with it – with modest steps towards universal inheritance in the 21st century instead of modest steps towards universal suffrage in the 19th century.
PS. For “rear” read “year!
Dane, you’re falling into the same rut as Tim13 and arguing against what you percieve to be my character and not my substantive points.
I do not know anything about the Labour circles you speak of. I do know that I heard very little from the Liberal Democrats to counter the accusation of ‘death taxes’ spouted by the conservatives at the election and that the coalition is ending the government contribution to child trust funds.
What exaclty does your demand of greater equality of opportunity in education and health mean? It could mean that all children are entitled to equal access to the teaching of latin and that we are all entitled to an aspirin. That you believe that health and education should not be privatised is encouraging but runs counter to the government’s actions. Do you think for example that english language support for asylum seekers and immigrants should be rationed by price? How about wheel chairs? Social housing?
The native capabilities of each individual require a differential level of health care and education if real equality of opportunity to lead an autonomous life is to become a reality. True freedom depends upon equality of capability according to Nick Clegg. That requires that each individuals inherent inequalities are balanced through unequal opportunity in health and education in order for meaningful adult choice to be possible.
Why should the income offered by the welfare state only be a safety net? Why not return to a proper system of universal unemployment insurance as a proportion of lost wages? Capitalism as presently constituted requires a large degree of idleness for huge numbers of people. This system is enabling vast wealth to be accumulated over the course of a lifetime on the back of that idleness, inheritance is not a factor in this inequality. For those who we require to sit idly on the sidelines with no opportunity or power to change their lives, should they not share in the wealth that such a system creates? Does that not sound fair?
For your system of redistribution of inheritance; would that be funded by 100% taxation of accrued monetary wealth on death or would it include assets? Are you proposing to put the means of production, ownership and exchange into the inheritance pot so as to remove the actual motors of inherited priviledge or is it just to be the savings of the masses? Will land be part of this national inheritance redistribution scheme? Will a 100% taxation of assets on death be applied to everyone who dies or would there be exemptions? Would married couples still be able to inherit each others assets? What about those who live their lives together but don’t believe in marriage? Would they be allowed to have ownership of what they considered to be shared assets or would they each be considered to have had their share when they were 25?
If your proposal is simply to give everyone an inheritance of £10,000 without any restriction on the present system of inherited wealth and power that already exists then it is another example of the liberal democrat desire to appear to be doing something whilst protecting the status quo.
My conclusion after these preliminary thoughts on your proposal is that it is nothing more than tinkering at the edges of inequality. It is a minor response to one of the least relevant aspects of inherited priviledge unless it is a proposal to take the means of production, ownership and exchange back into national control and then redistribute it. It leaves in place the inherited ownership of those motors of priviledge that really make a difference and only offers a moment of financial equality throughout an individuals life. It would not necessarily be a bad thing to do but implies that the only problem inequality has to solve is the financial inequality that exists at the moment in life that an individual moves into the market place. Any inequality that is suffered before or after that moment must presumably be taken as the result of bad individual choices and is therefore not inequality at all as the opportunity to have made better choices was made available at the age of 25.
Sorry Dane, I have written a response but for some reason every time I make more than two contributions to a debate the third seems to be put in for moderation until the debate is long gone into history. As I have never made any personal comment I can only assume that it is my desire to question the liberalism of the liberal democrats that is deemed questionable. Either way I am unconvinced as to the liberalism of those who administer these pages. I question the liberalism of the liberal democrats because it seems to me that it doesn’t extend past being civil libertarians. The fact that my contributions to debate are repeatedly deleted or kicked into touch by being put into moderation for a couple of days suggests that this website doesn’t even extend that far.
Apologies for the previous post but mysteriously my post seems to have cleared moderation at the very moment I posted of my scepticism.
“JRC”
All I mean by greater equality of opportunity in education and health is that the state systems should be as good as, if not better, than the private systems, rather than less good. Class sizes and waiting lists to start with! The luxury expenditure on private health and education ought to be subject to VAT to help make the state systems better than they are.
Let me answer your questions about Universal Inheritance.
The redistribution of inheritance and lifetime capital gifts would include all the currently exempt lifetime gifts and agricultural, business and shareholding assets.
There would be no 100 per cent taxation. This is a Liberal, not a state socialist, proposal.
There would be a combination of 10 per cent taxation on the luxury expenditure of giving and bequeathing capital including all kinds of assets, deductible from progressive taxation from 10 per cent to 40 per cent on the receipt of all unearned lifetime capital gifts and assets inherited on death.
A 10 per cent Capital Donor Tax (IHT reduced from 40 per cent with all exemptions abolished) deductible from a progressive 10 per cent up to 40 per cent cumulative Lifetime Unearned Capital Receipts Tax – aka Accessions Tax
Transfers between partners, spouses and cohabiting siblings would be exempt.
The £10,000 at 25 would be part of the cumulative unearned lifetime receipts which would affect the progressive tax rate when further lifetime amounts are received.
UK Universal Inheritance became the party policy of the EU-sceptic continuation Liberal Party at its 120th Annual Liberal Party Assembly in 2005. (see http://www.liberal.org.uk). The preamble to the constitution of the Liberal Party calls for Liberty, Property and Security for all. The LibDem constitution does not – due to the influence of the disappointingly inegalitarian and EU-fanatic Social Democrat influx from the right wing of the Labour Party.
Once Universal Inheritance is introduced, political debate will surely increase the amount and the upper rate of tax. At present there are no existing parameters to argue about! We have to start somewhere to get rid of the Conservative political ideology of unrestricted Dynastic Capitalism cascading down the generations and replace it by a Liberal political ideology of Popular Capitalism in each new generation..
Agree that we need to define fairness, but far from satisfied that the limited approach David suggests is adequate!
Certainly it is more than money, I suggest that background and all the built in differences in power in society need equalising. That needs a book at least, It also needs a re-definition of Liberal Democracy in order to accommodate fairness and equality, both of which terms we use freely, but too vaguely.
My own Liberalism is about equal people negotiating their own places in society. At present we patently are not equal in any way, we don’t have equal powers to negotiate, and society is more of an economic structure than social.
We need a good debate on these issues before we even attempt David’s limited agenda!