The undeserving rich

Austin Barry

Surely the undeserving rich are those of the underclass who live off handouts paid for by the rest of us.

LibertarianLou

Brilliant, fair, and totally spot on.

LibertarianLou

@Austin Barry

I don't think you can be "the underclass" and be "rich". Surely that's the "undeserving poor" you're talking about.

I thought to point of the article is that while the "undeserving poor" get talked about a lot, people won't take this seriously unless the problem of the "undeserving rich" is ALSO addressed. Not addressed instead (as many on the left might like), but just addressed as well.

telemachus

The key problem of the undeseving rich is the reinforcement of the anti-success mentality of our sink schools. Like the concept of Free schools they are there as a reminder to the toiling majority that there is no fairness and why bother

I welcome your highlighting of this but you give no solutions

Why not drop the 50% tax rate but only for EARNED income as the first step

True Bred Pomponian

What a pity Cameron and his chums mostly fall into this class.

boulay

surely the "undeserving rich" are people like ed miliband and Mr & Mrs Balls who have accrued expensive houses and good salaries thanks to the state's largesse (and some nifty tax planning) but would like to ensure that others who have actually worked hard should have to give more of it to the state.

they do not deserve to be rich - they deserve to live in basic houses and have national average salaries if they are going to criticise others for making more money than they need!!

alastair harris

the 'undeserving rich'? Those MPs who abused the expenses system. Those MEPs with their snouts in the EU gravy train. And those MPs who sucessfully manage to combine both. Wouldn't mind so much if they spent less time trying to lecture the rest of us.

joe get

It's immoral to start a business, and create jobs and wealth, but not immoral to tax that created wealth, parastically live off it, and use it to enlarge one's personal, bureucratic empire, having never worked in the private sector or created one single penny of wealth or one single job ever.

I employ 907 people. What a bast*rd. I'm so undeserving. Please, take all my money and pi*s it up against the wall - oh, sorry - you're already doing that - my mistake.

Paul Danon

Just as there are laws against fiddling a benefit-claim, so there are laws against sharp practice in big business. People of any social class who misbehave should be apprehended and punished. However, there are also people of all classes who are innocent of wrongdoing. It's therefore wrong to treat an entire class as criminal.

mac

We currently have socialism for the rich and unbridled capitalism for the rest of us. By that state of affairs the rich are undeserving. It makes more sense just to eat them.

Guido Fawkes

I'd be wary of starting a Speccie campaign on this subject, not sure the owners would approve.

michael

When it comes down to it ,the politics of envy has got naff all to do with the behaviour of rogues, newsworthiness notwithstanding. The really damaging stuff is the kind of peer versus peer union manipulated drivel that brought this country to its Knees in the seventies.
"They earn this in the private sector so I should earn that working for the council bla bla".
Its probably the reason why state salaries have become so unreasonably high.

normanc

Very murky waters this. Two groups mentioned, despots and plunderers, I don't know why they are brought up other than they make easy targets everyone can nod along to they aren't relevant.

Bankers, well it was the politicians who bailed them out in the first place so what should we do, nationalise the banks 100% and cap wages? Of course not, so we either say 'good luck chaps' and then if the proverbial hits the fan again let them sink or accept that they outsmarted the government last time but that the new banking plan will solve things. Either way not much that can be done.

What about someone who has inheirited vast wealth, perhaps it's been in the family for years, perhaps just recently built up via a parent. Are they undeserving? I'd argue no but once you start down the soclialist road where do you stop.

How about someone, e.g. the PMs father in law, who inheirited land from way back and is now being paid at a minimum hundreds of thousands a year via subsidies from ordinary punters to have windmills erected on his land.

Does he deserve that money more than the ordinary Joe's paying for it?

Nickle

Lets see.

7 in the family.
104,000 a year housing benefit
7 * 1800 = 12,600 a year minimum for free health care.

5 * 6,000 = 30,000 a year for free education.

Plus 'benefits' on top.

Over 5 years, that is more than a lottery win.

We've certainly got those on benefits who are more than wealthy.

michael

The undeserving rich as described are yet another part of society that have become untouchable on the basis that the Revenue claim that chasing them unproductively expensive.
Strangely, the same Revenue has just launched an a Stalinesque 'i' dotting 't' crossing offensive on small businesses wrt the proving up of expenses...well that's where the bonuses are. Same old Same old.

lescam

Provided a rich person pays his/her taxes without any undue avoidance, where is the crime in being rich, and why are such people considered undeserving? As has been said, many such people create jobs and help the economy. To divide the rich classes into "deserving" and "undeserving" is pointless. Even if someone has never done anything to help the economy, as long as they pay their taxes they should not be classed as undeserving, any more than any other person. They are entitled to their income as much as anyone else, and jolly good luck to them.

R.McGeddon

Boris Johnson called it correctly, earlier this year, when he clamoured for a 'greater sense of euergetism'. The deserving rich and the undeserving rich ( B£iar and Mandelson ? ) ought to search their souls and their bulging bank balances and DONATE chunks of their wealth to good causes. ( I won't hold my breath )

whatawaste

So undeserving rich include the Russian oligarchs and middle eastern despots but the Bilderburg Group do not get a mention, or the Rothschilds, DuPonts, Roosevelts et al who own the Federal reserve in the US. I could go on but these people do not like the limelight.

David L

The growth of the super-rich and the squeezing of the middle class will play out politically. But how? In the USA it has spawned the Tea Party. In Blighty the Eds are trying to sieze the territory with their talk of "the squeezed middle". But a a squeezed middle I'm not buying anything from Labour until they fess up to their fiscal and economic failures. So who WILL speak for us. There must be more to life than UKIP.

Nicholas

I'm surprised at the Spectator echoing this soviet drivel. The undeserving rich are the quasi-autonomous carbuncle which has been grown on the back of all working people in Britain for the last thirty years, whatever their income. A monstrous parasite of invented jobs and socialist dogma which creates the fantastic paradox of an oppressed people paying for the propaganda force fed them.

These cloaked civil servants and cant activists enjoy an ever increasing power and remuneration and we have been so brainwashed that we now think nothing of jumped up town clerks pulling in six-figure salaries or piddling propaganda jobs (anything with 'co-ordinator' in the title) pulling in more than an Army NCO putting his life on the line in the New Labour's wars. All of which we pay for in income tax, a vast array of stealth tax and council tax, not to mention the latest wheeze - green taxes hidden in utility bills. And even as we speak these parasites are dreaming up new ways to tax us even more.

If you want to start somewhere, Spectator, instead of just being a mouthpiece for the propaganda of that creepy adenoidal wonk (but no doubt future millionaire) Milliband, take a long hard look at Britain's carbuncle - the quangocracy. Dissect it, analyse its laughable "value" for money, expose its shenanigans and self-serving nepotism, its fake charities - hollow lobbying vessels for the left - villify and ridicule its smug top earners, most of whom have never done an honest day's work in their lives.

Never mind the undeserving rich, Britain is heading for a new age of feudalism with serfs who toil for ever decreasing advantage and robber barons who tax them until their eyes water, steal their light bulbs and poke their smug, unwanted noses into anything they haven't already regulated, licensed, taxed or banned. And don't look to the media to expose this lucrative squeeze racket; they have become part of this vast champagne socialist brotherhood and sisterhood and their smokescreens and tittle-tattle conveniently distract from the bleedingly obvious truth of it all.

A rant? Yes. Angry? You bet.

LibertarianLou

joe get

How on earth did you get that from what was written!?

LibertarianLou

nickle

They aren't wealthy, they are supported by the state and are given free handouts. That doesn't make them WEALTHY. Otherwise increasing benefits would be wealth creation, which it clearly isn't.

I would prefer to see more wealthy people and fewer dependents.

HOWEVER (nickle and lescam) I think the point is that there are people at the top end of the wealth spectrum who get away with things that the people at the bottom end would not, i.e. screwing up a business (no-one should be "too big to fail"), hacking into privates phones, stealing from the state (MPs' expenses), being greedy and waste (goodness knows what goes on in Brussels) and so on. It's not a crime to be rich, no-one is saying anything of the kind. Just that you can't expect people at the bottom end of society to behave in a way that people at the top, with all sorts of power, education, access to information, etc, don't bother.

LibertarianLou

Nicholas

It seems like you're calling the concept of the undeserving rich "soviet drivel" then go on to list a whole bunch of examples of undeserving rich. (Faux champagne socialists, people purely rich by pigging out on other people's taxes, etc.)

Alex

Surprised to see the weasel words 'dodge their taxes' above. Are you talking about avoidance or evasion? It matters which.
It's actually quite easy; if people have made money legally and are paying the taxes that they are legally obliged to pay then we can't steal money from them just to please the baying mob. The whole 'rule of law' thing? We went through a lot of hassle to stop monarchs arbitrarily deciding who 'deserved' to have what; do you really want to give the power to George Osborne? If the rich aren't aren't paying what they are legally obliged to pay, prosecute them. If you still think they should pay more, change the tax law.

Nicholas

LibertarianLou - less the concept than the "targets" of the article - which conform to the stereotypes created by the modern British soviets. The article did not mention the tax-fat socialist elite at all whilst urging a supposedly Conservative PM to do something about the others. The Spectator being a supposedly right of centre magazine one might have expected this horde of state-sponsored left-wing spongers to get a mention.

Personally I think they are a bigger problem for the country than tax evaders or avoiders anyway because of their tendency to extend their remits and create "work" and "jobs" for more creatures of their ilk, all of which are funded directly or indirectly from our taxes and all of which appear to be based on presumptions of political dogma forced on the public. I don't know about you but I have a problem with my hard earned money helping to fund rich socialists in ways which will inevitably involve more cost, more regulation and more "holier than thou" lecturing down the line.

Richard

How did we come to the idea that the 'wealth-creators' are a small section of society only? It is wrong to identify wealth-creation purely and restrictively with the investment of money. That's an impoverished idea of wealth-creation, and indeed of wealth.

First of all, everyone employed in the production of goods has played a role in creating them, and thus in the creation of any wealth that they bring. Second, the investor and employer have could not have reached the position of being able to invest and employ without the benefit of a supportive familial and social infrastructure - the familial and social being interdependent. Investors and employers were the beneficiaries of domestic labour from their families. They attended schools and universities, most of which were subsidised in part or whole by the state, and all of which employed people whose competence derived in turn from the same education system. They were nurtured and protected by the health service. They use the roads, holiday on the beaches and breathe the clean air, just like the rest of us. All of this infrastructure plays a part in producing the wealth. That's why the notion that public sector employees are not wealth-creators is so wrong and ungrateful.

This idea of wealth-creation as something the whole society took part in was never the only concept of wealth-creation, but it was strong, in different ways, in pre-industrial rural culture (everyone taking part in, and depending on, the harvest) and the culture of heavy industry (whole towns being identified with shipbuilding or mining). Ruskin said that there is no wealth but life. In these examples, there is the idea that the life of the community consists in the creation and the enjoyment of wealth: activities not always clearly demarcated from each other. There is a contrast between this idea of wealth and the notion that sometimes seem prevalent now, that the creation of wealth is categorically separate from the enjoyment of it. Wealth, on this definition, consists in a well-provided social environment, inherited from the past, shared with others and passed on to the future.

Those examples come from harder times, though. The debate here, I think - especially now that times may be getting a little harder again - touches on the question of whether we can restore, in a high-tech, globalised economic system, the notion that wealth is created by the whole community, and consists in the life of the community. Perhaps the libertarians and free-marketeers here don't like that idea anyway - but without it, I suspect that the forms of social morality that many conservatives hope to restore will also remain out of reach.

Augustus

If you overtax the super rich or big corporations they can move their investments and their business - and employment - elsewhere. So who stays behind? Those who live off entitlements, and the employed but not-rich who would struggle even more to pay the government's debt load. If that isn't obvious...

Richard

Augustus,

Yours is a pragmatic argument (rather like the secular arguments for the benefits of religion we sometimes hear). Don't tax the rich for reasons of fairness, for fear that they will depart, taking their 'wealth' with them. To combat such an argument on its own terms, one would have to find reasons why the failure to tax the rich would be more damaging socially than the loss of some of that wealth.

That might well be possible, but I wonder what your moral argument is, as opposed to your pragmatic one. Do you believe that the rich are mainly rich due to their virtue rather than their luck? Or are you suggesting that we have no choice but to accept an immoral outcome, because the cost of changing it would be too high?

LibertarianLou

Nicholas

Fair point! I wish they'd mentioned EU politicians and some of the top union bosses, I would imagine the list is pretty long and we could go on forever and ever and ever...

Nicholas

LibertarianLou - yes indeed, both those categories too!

But it struck me that the article was written from or, at least echoing, a wholly left wing perspective.

Dennis Churchill

What about the inherited wealth of people like Mary Louisa Toynbee or Lady Hodge (nee Margaret Eve Oppenheimer) are they members of the deserving rich?

Augustus

Richard - Firstly, I think it's pointless for a government of any persuasion to try and cherry-pick the 'undeserving rich' from
people who are deemed to 'deserve' their wealth. And this is particularly so of a Conservative one. You simply can't assign wealth in that way, and if you try to it's certainly a form of immorality. As for luck,
yes, that certainly plays a role. But so does hard work far more so. John Paul Getty
once said; "My formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil." Wealth in a nutshell!

Baron

What Nicholas says, says so well, too.

and this: the idea of basing taxation on what the Treasury can get away with, what appeases one section of the hoi polloi or another and stuff like that doesn't appeal to Baron, it smells of hatred of one sort or another, cannot be right on moral grounds, may just pass the pragmatism test, still no good though.

Simon Stephenson.

Richard (4.28pm and 5.17pm) makes some good points, but one that hasn't been made is that there is a distinction that should be made between those who acquire their wealth through rent-seeking, or acquiring the already-created wealth of others, and those whose wealth is actually value created by themselves. I'd argue that we should have a bespoke tax policy that actively discourages rent-seeking at the same time as being a minimal burden to those who are actually creating the wealth.

Harsh taxation of rent-seekers is neither socialist, nor counter-productive, nor the product of envy - it's merely a recognition that acquiring the wealth of others is not something which can be prevented by law, but that it is entirely non-contributory to society, and that because of this it should be discouraged.

libertarian

This entire piece, quite a lot of the comments and the sentiments expressed here sum up the utterly desperately poor thought processes of people in this country.

It's ONLY money and money has NO VALUE unless you SPEND it and as soon as you do that it helps EVERYONE else.

Jezuz frigging christ have NONE of you ever read Adam Smith?

All the stuff written here is jealousy not moral indignation. This is quite the most pathetic piece I've seen written on this blog. As for libertarianlou please REMOVE the first part of your username as you haven't a clue what libertarianism is.

Ruby Duck

@Simon Stephenson

What's a rent-seeker ?

Richard

Augustus,

I asked you, though, what was your moral judgement.

You said that the super-rich should not be taxed more heavily because that would drive them away. This is in the context of ordinary people being asked to make serious sacrifices: their services are being cut, their wages are being held back while prices rise, and their pensions are being made worse. In this context, do you think it is morally right that the very rich, whose wealth insulates them against all material hardship, should be expected to make a proportionate sacrifice? That is, lose a similar proportion of their income and expectations. You have suggested that it would be practically inexpedient to demand such a sacrifice of the rich, but would it be morally right? And is it morally wrong of them to say that they will leave if asked to make a proportionate contribution?

In other words, are you suggesting that we must accept an immoral outcome for reasons of practical expediency?

I S

Nicholas - With respect; there are many non-socialists who are also perturbed by the current developments within the capitalist system. If an arch-conservative like Charles Moore has misgivings and a multi-billionaire like Buffett believes he is undertaxed, then something is clearly amiss.
Why should we be proud about that the UK is a bolthole for corrupt oligarchs and despots? Should we doff our cloth caps, tug our forelocks and mutter 'God bless you guv' when they toss their measly £30K into the coffers?

Ruby Duck

The day we start taxing on any basis other than simple numbers is the day I get myself one of those automatic weapon thingies and spend a couple of days expressing myself.

Nicholas

IS - you are missing my point. You are presuming, like others, that tax revenue should rise on the basis of demonising certain elements within our society and that very high levels of government and quasi-autonomous, non-governmetal funding are justified and necessary. That is a socialist construct and any non-socialists who fall for it are strengthening their arm. It also reinforces my impression of the country shifting leftwards and of the right of centre actually being subverted by socialist ideas.

I am pointing out two things. The way that tax is already spent so wastefully (the 'cuts' are a drop in the ocean and merely to pacify the market) and the fact that some of the richest are not oligarchs but quasi-autonomous creations of the socialist state. Despots certainly and becoming more so.

I lived and worked in a laissez-faire, low tax economy for many years and I have to say that it knocked this country into a cocked hat in terms of business dynamism, shared wealth and societal harmony. This clueless country is racing towards becoming East Germany through 'good intentions'. That is foolish and the only way the right can stop it is by effectively challenging the superficial banalities and myths of the left - not by contributing to them.

The people behind this latest 'crusade' against (some of) the rich are rich socialists and it is all about distracting attention and securing more power for themselves. The tax-funded state and semi-state is bloated and useless - look for targets there - otherwise it is going to become even more bloated and even more useless.

libertarian

@Nicholas

An excellent post sir, and far more eloquently made than I ever could. Thank you

Augustus

Richard - There is not much to say after Nicholas's excellent post. But you mention 'ordinary people' who are suffering hardships. Well, as far as I know there have always been rich people living in the same society as ordinary people. That's not new, even if it used to be inherited wealth
rather than 'new money'. But I say again, if you drive the top entrepreneurs away, you also drive competition away, and that can only mean more overcharging making poorer people poorer. But if you must 'have a go' at the rich, how about a new VAT system where luxury goods are a higher rate?
Ford Fiestas at 17.5% and Ferraris at 30%.
That should do it.

Simon Stephenson.

Ruby Duck : 10.42pm

I should have thought you were just as capable as I of googling "rent-seeker", but, anyway, you'll find the Wiki entry to be a reasonable introduction to the concept:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

You may also find this article of John Kay's to be of some interest:-

http://www.johnkay.com/2010/08/18/robber-barons-of-the-rhine

I S

Nicholas - I heartily concur with all you say and would be pleased if the UK moved towards encouraging wealth creation by lowering business taxes and reducing red tape.
However, those being stiffed at present are the ordinary taxpayers on the PAYE system and the small businesses who have to cope with increasing regulation. Large organisations and the increasing number of corrupt oligarchs are much better placed to avoid making any reasonable contribution. For example, note Vodafone avoiding making a £6bn tax payment because of a cosy deal with HMRC. The powerful are becoming increasingly powerful. Are you at ease with that?

outonalamb

Hi LibertarianLou. Austin is right and you are wrong. On 25K housing handouts alone you can become a benefits MILLIONAIRE if you hang in there for four decades, diligently avoiding any kind of work opportunity throughout your productive years. As many thousands do. Call them Sxumxxg Millionaires.

Simon Stephenson.

Nicholas : 7.32am

"IS - you are missing my point. You are presuming, like others, that tax revenue should rise on the basis of demonising certain elements within our society and that very high levels of government and quasi-autonomous, non-governmetal funding are justified and necessary."

No - you're guilty here of poisoning the well. A belief that certain groups should be taxed more is not the same as a belief that total tax levels should be higher, nor that "Big Government" is either necessary or desirable.

It's quite possible to believe that there are certain behaviours which it is more appropriate to discourage through taxation rather then through specific legal prohibition. It's ridiculous to pretend that it's impossible to differentiate between wealth creation and wealth acquisition, and that therefore it's impossible to discourage rent-seeking through bespoke tax policy. The fact that such a nonsense is widely held to be axiomatic only goes to show the lobbying strength of those who make their fortunes from acquiring the wealth of others.

Alex

Confused by the comment re the fact there is a class of people called the undeserving 'rich' will push the country further to the left. First, can we go any further left, and not be Stalinist? Second, more generally, the undeserving poor are 'undeserving' because they are receiving income from the forced taxes of other people who work hard etc to earn their own wage. What this article has as a subtext is that whilst society will allow people to be rich, they must be rich within a certain predetermined level. Sounds like the start of an incomes/wealth policy to me, which brings the argument full circle: to stop the country moving left, we must move left. Mmmm...

Nicholas

Simon Stephenson I'm not poisoning anything. You are presuming a separation that does not exist.

Yes, it is quite possible to believe what you believe but whether that has any connection to what is actually happening is highly debatable. What is the fundamental purpose of taxation? Is it to fund legitimate government interventions and services within a reasonable balance of percentage to enterprise or to punish people within a somewhat arbitrary stereotype? Are bankers seeking profits for their shareholders (for example) morally more reprehensible than champagne socialists running quangos that serve no useful purpose for the majority, produce nothing except non-jobs and drain tax revenues?

Whatever the finer points of your argument the thrust of this debate has been harnessed by socialists who want to tax more to fund the questionable extravagances of their governmental model and to use tax as a form of punitive moral censure.

"Certain behaviours which it is more appropriate to discourage through taxation"? Those are the weasel words of New Labour, taking moral pot shots at the latest "demon", whether it is smoking, obesity or meat eating. Who is to decide the "certain behaviours" and on what basis? Do you really, seriously believe that it will be accomplished objectively and without ideological prejudice/preference? Look at how "green taxes" supposed to "discourage certain (corporate) behaviours" are now being offset within the billing of ordinary consumers. Target them for more tax and you and I will still be paying.

When government stops wasting our tax revenue and using it to increase the size of the state for ideological purposes I shall happily reconsider the case for taxing the "rich" punitively, whoever they are. At present it is diversionary bunkum.

Richard

Augustus,

You steadfastly decline to offer any moral judgements, presumably because you believe that governments should not make policy on the basis of morality, but (like Tony Blair) only on the basis of 'what works', setting aside all debate about ends and means. I take it that you similarly decline to make moral judgements about the behaviour of the poor, people living on benefits and so forth.

In this, you are at odds with the Prime Minister and those Conservatives who are seeking to re-moralise their politics, as James Forsyth tells us. Cameron today talked about a 'moral collapse' having taken place. Charles Moore, Peter Oborne and other conservative commentators have used similar terms; it certainly isn't a purely Left or socialist perspective. To be consistent and politically viable, these moral criteria need to be applied to the rich as well as the poor. For the most privileged people in society to threaten to leave if asked to contribute to a national effort to solve the debt crisis is morally reprehensible, isn't it? It is especially reprehensible coming from the bankers who caused the problem in the first place. If that hostage-taking argument from the super rich goes uncondemned, I don't see how anyone can complain about ordinary people refusing to contribute - striking to protect their pensions and to defend services, for example.

The 'we're all in it together' slogan is pretty hard to swallow, since it disregards the way the rich are insulated from the consequences that will hurt the poor. But if it has any validity, it is as an appeal to patriotism - to the nation as a unifying principle. Putting your money in a tax haven to avoid taxation, or threatening to leave the country if taxes increase, is pretty unpatriotic, isn't it?

Simon Stephenson.

Nicholas : 2.13pm

"Are bankers seeking profits for their shareholders (for example) morally more reprehensible than champagne socialists running quangos that serve no useful purpose for the majority, produce nothing except non-jobs and drain tax revenues?"

Not poisoning the well, eh?

The answer depends upon a couple of things:-

1. What are the bankers doing to generate profits forn their shareholders? How much of what they do is generating new wealth, and how much merely creating the conditions in which they are able to siphon off the wealth which others have already created?

2. Which quangos serve no useful purpose to the majority, produce nothing except non-jobs and are run by "champagne socialists"? All of them? Most of them? Some of them? A few of them? One or two of them?

E Hart

Undeserving rich? Who says so? This is as ridiculous as the undeserving poor. Neither is undeserving.

The issue is whether you think some of the rich should pay more in tax. Also, whether some people (e.g. those on the FTSE100) should earn salaries of £4m when the average employee makes 25k if they are lucky. Who needs it?

If you want an underclass and people living on subsistence in a retarded economy - then go ahead - this is how you get it. If you actually want something better you have to tax people on a sliding scale relative to their income. Do we really want to end up like Brazil, Mexico or the US were people live in gated communities patrolled by security guards and dogs? It is unjust, illogical and counterproductive. A better distribution of wealth in this country would be an improvement not something to lament.

As for all you vacuous crapheads talking about welfare spongers. Just remember there are 500,000 vacancies for 2.5m unemployed. Work it out! We've had between 1-1.5m unemployed since the late 1970s. The figure has never dropped below 1m in that time. Instead of pronouncing on things of which you know so little, why don't you take the trouble to find out?

We have a synthesis based on iniquity and it will do little for those who are wealthy and nothing whatever for the economy or the culture of this country. They will end up living in fairyland surrounded by a midden. For what? Paying a bit more tax on money they wouldn't even notice?

Nicholas

Simon Stephenson: "the answer depends upon a couple of things".

Exactly. I'm glad you have pondered both questions rather than just one of them as the article did.

And by the way, on a point of pedantry, I don't believe my comments do "poison the well". I think you are misapplying that expression which more correctly implies an attempt to create a prejudice or preference before debate. I was commenting on the article after it was presented. My comments were responsive not pre-conditional therefore they could not possibly influence reaction to the article itself unless they were read beforehand. Not impossible but unlikely and not my intention.

To carry your accusation to ridiculous conclusion, all comments which do not fall within Simon Stephenson's view of the subject matter could be considered as "poisoning the well". In your eagerness to punish those you disapprove of you exclude others equally in need of chastisement. I don't. You demonstrated exactly the same urge re Murdoch, focussing on your perception of the wrongdoing in his Empire and disregarding the collateral mischief around it.

Nicholas

I S no I am not at ease with that and concur. But I am not at ease with the way the narrative is being constructed to suit an ideological leftist purpose. And I am not at ease that taxation waste and the rise of the socialist quangocracy is being omitted from the scrutiny.

steamroller

Of course the prime example of undeserving rich is the lottery winner

Simon Stephenson.

Nicholas : 9.39pm

I'm sorry, but I must disagree with you again.

You are clearly arguing throughout this thread that any suggestion of the possible merits of greater taxation of the well-off is certain to be baseless, because the only people who could possibly be suggesting this are socialists, and socialists, as we all know, only favour more tax out of envy, or out of a wish to feather their own nests by confiscating the wealth of others. Don't you see that this is poisoning the well by implicit suggestion, as set out in point 2 under structure here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

Your approach to the Murdoch brouhaha was out of the same stable - anyone declaring against Murdoch can't possibly be doing so for moral, rather than political reasons. The Left are hypocritically using the phone-hacking saga to discredit one of their opponents, therefore anyone attacking Murdoch must be of the Left. In reality, it's quite possible to be sceptical of the designs of both the Left and Murdoch. You may believe that it is bad tactics to weaken the position of someone you count as one of your allies, but this is not the same as arguing that he has no case to answer because the arguments against him have been fabricated, or because his accusers are not sqeaky-clean either.

And as for your claim not to seek to exclude those in need of chastisement, this is just self-delusion - your position is "my enemy's enemy is my friend" and this absolves his behaviour from being subject to the same right/wrong judgementalism you apply to the behaviour of those you deem not to be on your side.

John Bowman

If by waive of a magic wand all the undeserving rich were to disappear it would make no difference: they would be replaced by some other hate group.

We would still be left with a remote political elite, vaccinated with pernicious Socialism so even those on the supposed Right hold some of the main tenets of that vile ideology as the norm; a Ponzi style welfare system in terminal phase; an ever increasing group - "the poor" - who are sustained in a tolerable, comfortable lifestyle at taxpayer expense; power in the final stages of being transferred from the People to an unelected Politburo in Brussels; a mad preoccupation with doom that says that the progress of Mankind will destroy it; an overwhelming desire by those in charge to order ever tiny detail of our lives from what we eat to how we flush the lavatory; self-satisfying clowns in Government who believe taxpayers' money is play money for them to spend on their grand gestures, great foreign adventures and projects, spreading democracy, curing the sick, feeding the hungry, ending poverty like they are all contestant in a Miss World Liberal Beauty pageant.

What does need to be addressed is the undeserving powerful, those fools in government hither and yon, and the idiots who vote them in time after time.

Nicholas

Simon Stephenson. Don't be sorry about disagreeing - that is another socialist construct frequently seen on forums - "Sorry, but . . ." etc.

And don't be making my argument for me! That is another one!

I have no doubt there is merit in what you write but the problem is, as always, that the powerful Left harness and characterise these debates to suit their aggrandising purpose and the original kernel of truth is wrapped up in all sorts of collateral leftist opportunism. Look at Breivik.

I don't have an issue with dodgy alliances to win wars. I think moral absolutes in an era of evil can make the side with merit weak, as we see almost daily, but it is debatable. I don't like the Left, any of it, and I want to see it defeated absolutely, as it should have been in 2010 and wasn't. My position on this has hardened considerably in the last 12 months, perhaps in part to the disappointing performance of Cameron in tackling the residual Left in government.

Far from arguing that the suggestion to tax the well-off even more is baseless I believe it is diversionary and not addressing the whole issue. I think it is a lazy option and encourages the socialist state to waste more money. I also think that within it there is more scope for bureaucracy and intervention which I am suspicious of. I think a distinction between corporatism and capitalism should be made - which hasn't been - and I think the "rich" (whether deserving or not) is a woolly concept that plays right into the hands of the socialists manipulation of language. Their concept of the rich is a narrow one that does not include themselves, however rich they are.

I'm more relaxed about argument than you, comfortable with disagreement, because I'm less certain of the right and wrong. The presumption that one side of an argument must be wrong and the other right is another socialist trait. Where it is not enough just to disagree (as in this case) but where one side has to be 100% wrong and the other 100% right, an outcome often achieved by suspiciously coercive means.

Simon Stephenson.

Nicholas : 3.26pm

I really don't think I'm too far away from you in my rejection of the idea that the statist left is the most socially propitious form of political organisation. In fact, it would be hard for anyone to be more convinced that authoritarian leftism is far more likely to be a horror-story than to end up in Paradise.

But you won't defeat the left without offering the CDE stratas of society something to convince them that they will be better off under a less-controlled, more individualistic and self-reliant type of government. You see, in general they're not convinced by Adam Smith's invisible hand, nor by the trickle-down theory of wealth distribution. They believe that if you give the powerful a free hand, they'll scheme and conspire to gather everything for themselves, doling out just enough to keep the weak alive, so that they are able to continue to produce the next tranche of wealth for the strong to acquire.

In my opinion, the way to defeat the statist left is to stop denying that the powerful have weaknesses as well as strengths, and to understand that to get the CDEs on your side, it will not be enough to treat these weaknesses as mere foibles which are part and parcel of creativity. This just won't work. The ABs need to understand that if they don't voluntarily accept discouragement of nakedly selfish behaviour, then such discouragement will be imposed upon them, sledgehammer-style, by an authoritarian left which the ABs don't have the numbers to defeat at the ballot-box.

The message to the ABs is clear - the only way to promote better and more constructive behaviour in others is to behave better yourselves.

E Hart

@ Richard. I agree. What's more, I'd invite them to go. They seem to think they are indispensable - they aren't. No one is indispensable. They are talented - but not uniquely talented. The country is not short of people interested or capable of working in banking and never will be.

They aren't patriots they are vacuous, self-interested, smug and greedy. Also, they are so arrogant they don't think anyone will call their bluff. Won't they? We might not have much choice on that.

A brain drain in academia is much more dangerous that losing a bunch deluded arseholes who contrived this mess in the first place.

Simon Heras

Does the man who grows a lot of vegetables 'owe' some to his neighbour? No. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with being rich - it didn't cost anyone else one red cent. Punitive taxes however (by that I mean any tax on income higher than 10%) are simply state theft and do cost people the ability to live their lives as they would wish.