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I think I possibly need to clarify my terms a bit better, following the last post.
As I said in a comment there, I believe that a government's first and foremost role is to make sure everybody has the things they *need*. This goes double for children, as it's generally not in any way their fault that they are in whatever economic situation they are in, and ought to be given exactly the same level of oppertunity as each other. But nobody should starve or die of easily treatable medical conditions or sleeping rough, unless they have made it absolutely impossible for the government to help them (i.e. they're violent and abusive to social workers and actively refuse help etc).
This includes some treading on people's freedoms in the category of 'making a safe environment for people to live in' - the balance is quite hard here, because the principle 'your right to swing your fist ends when my nose starts - unless you have explicit permission' is really hard to apply over all of the things people do to each other. But in general I don't think the government should enforce 'values' or 'social norms'.
Obviously governments do need to have some kind of thought about economic matters - making sure the country is either self-sufficient or has the money to import things which are needed. Generally this gets quite mired up in corruption, even of the mostly innocent variety everyone indulges in (this policy is better for me / my family / my friends / the companies I'm investing in / the compaines I need to purchase things from to maintain public services), and I'm not sure how to get around this. I do know, from study at A-level ecomonics type level, that the assumption that concentrating on economic growth is necessary to increase standard of living is not backed up by the facts, and reasonably well-off countries with high taxation and good public services tend to score highest on all forms of standard-of-living indexes. (So even if there is a requirement at some stage of development to concentrate on economic growth, the UK is beyond that point.)
The main issue with politics today, however, is that most people have got the message 'look at all this money they're taking from me in my pay check - income tax is bad and I don't want it to happen, so I'll vote for whoever will cut taxes or at least not increase them'. And they do not connect this with their other pet peeve, 'public schools are no good and hospitals are appalling, and as for public transport and the road network it's a joke'. So no party who has the willpower to raise taxes and sort out public services has a hope of getting elected, and we get 'stealth taxes' that are much less fair and equitable than income tax but are less noticable to people (for instance for VAT the shop gets blamed not the government for the price increase, also VAT impacts poor people much more than rich people because it's a higher percentage of what they have that gets taken from them, unlike income tax which is progressive (richer people pay a larger percentage 'cos they don't need it as much)).
Anyhow. I must pack for Oxonmoot now, so I'll be back for more fun political debates on Sunday.
As I said in a comment there, I believe that a government's first and foremost role is to make sure everybody has the things they *need*. This goes double for children, as it's generally not in any way their fault that they are in whatever economic situation they are in, and ought to be given exactly the same level of oppertunity as each other. But nobody should starve or die of easily treatable medical conditions or sleeping rough, unless they have made it absolutely impossible for the government to help them (i.e. they're violent and abusive to social workers and actively refuse help etc).
This includes some treading on people's freedoms in the category of 'making a safe environment for people to live in' - the balance is quite hard here, because the principle 'your right to swing your fist ends when my nose starts - unless you have explicit permission' is really hard to apply over all of the things people do to each other. But in general I don't think the government should enforce 'values' or 'social norms'.
Obviously governments do need to have some kind of thought about economic matters - making sure the country is either self-sufficient or has the money to import things which are needed. Generally this gets quite mired up in corruption, even of the mostly innocent variety everyone indulges in (this policy is better for me / my family / my friends / the companies I'm investing in / the compaines I need to purchase things from to maintain public services), and I'm not sure how to get around this. I do know, from study at A-level ecomonics type level, that the assumption that concentrating on economic growth is necessary to increase standard of living is not backed up by the facts, and reasonably well-off countries with high taxation and good public services tend to score highest on all forms of standard-of-living indexes. (So even if there is a requirement at some stage of development to concentrate on economic growth, the UK is beyond that point.)
The main issue with politics today, however, is that most people have got the message 'look at all this money they're taking from me in my pay check - income tax is bad and I don't want it to happen, so I'll vote for whoever will cut taxes or at least not increase them'. And they do not connect this with their other pet peeve, 'public schools are no good and hospitals are appalling, and as for public transport and the road network it's a joke'. So no party who has the willpower to raise taxes and sort out public services has a hope of getting elected, and we get 'stealth taxes' that are much less fair and equitable than income tax but are less noticable to people (for instance for VAT the shop gets blamed not the government for the price increase, also VAT impacts poor people much more than rich people because it's a higher percentage of what they have that gets taken from them, unlike income tax which is progressive (richer people pay a larger percentage 'cos they don't need it as much)).
Anyhow. I must pack for Oxonmoot now, so I'll be back for more fun political debates on Sunday.
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(Anonymous) 2004-09-17 03:46 pm (UTC)(link)Abner
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The number of 'performance targets' has multiplied, and they are being fulfilled in greater and greater numbers. Of course they are! Because funding depends on those targets - funding that's needed to help children and patients - the organisation in question makes the targets its top priority. They stretch the letter of the targets, to make their perceived performance look better! Maximum waiting time 6 months - okay, so 5 months 28 days later, the patient gets their operation cancelled and told to go back to their GP for a new appointment as this one has timed out. Pupils must get 5 A* to C grades - okay, so they are taught exam technique and how to game the system for marks, instead of reading around and learning about the subject. Et cetera.
And who's monitoring these targets? Huge numbers of civil servants and managers, who have been especially taken on to do so. My mother, one such manager, spends most of her time ensuring that the Trusts she works for get full marks in the Government assessment. Has their quality improved in the last four years? Not in the slightest. Is patient care improved in the least by what she does? I sincerely doubt it. The department I was working for over the summer - that's twelve people, two of them highly paid executives and six of them with the title 'Manager' - spends probably 70% of its time composing reports to go back to the HSE, and only 30% of its time preventing accidents (the task of that department).
So, yes, the size of government has increased under Labour. But we have got no good out of it!
That is what I call waste. Sorting out public services does not require the raising of taxes - but it would require the willpower to sack about half the Civil Service and it would take a very long time - longer than a Government. And they would get much, much worse before they got better, because their unions would go berserk. Labour's supposed improvements are almost entirely paper gains reminiscent of Soviet tractor factories that outdid themselves year on year.
I'll post about taxes on my journal, I think.
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VAT
Of course in Britian there are very few really poor, and the group claiming to be poor and making a fuss are in fact the 'not all that poor really, but poor compared to the rest of the nation dammit we will extract all your money so we can spend it on pointless luxuries rather than let you spend it on pointless luxuries' crowd.
Personally I'd be in favour of getting rid of just about every tax except one, say income tax, but that's because I like systems which are neat, and our current tax system is anything but.
Incidently I recommend 'Yes Minister' for a perspective on government spending while being hilariously funny at the same time (not a common mixture).
Re: VAT
Which is really quite interesting; an income tax, by the second reasoning, is government discouraging economic activity in general. But duties, for example, are usually seen in the latter way (but used in the former).
Have you read 'Forward the Foundation' by Isaac Asimov? There's a bit in there about tax. It's quite insightful, but it's also a spoiler so I shan't detail it.
Re: VAT
I would observe that describing general taxation as discouraging economic activity in general seems to fail to take account of the way that the government spends the vast majority of tax money - recall that the government is the biggest employer in Britian by some margin.
An interesting thought occurs to me, is putting money in the hands of the poor actually really good for the economy? After all if the economy booms when lots of money is being moved around, that is, people are spending a lot, then moving it from a group less likely to spend it to a group more likely to spend it, and moving it from rich to poor knowing that of it's own accord it'll find it's way back, surely keeps a lot of money in circulation?
Am I missing some subtle piece of economics, or have I just destroyed a significant part of Right wing economic rhetoric?
That's a mighty thick mattress...
Saved money goes almost straight into investment - if it didn't, then the bank would be a massively loss-making type of institution, seeing as inflation gives an effective negative interest rate on the currency. In other words, money generates more economic activity sitting in a bank than it does anywhere else - once for the bank, once for the investment, once for the interest paid to the saver. It's called 'trickledown'.
A thought just occured. The institution of the bank could be looked at another way. Rich people have far too much money to know what to do with. So, for a small fee, they lend the money to people who do know what to do with it. But to do this more efficiently, an organisation is set up (it can be state-run, if you'd like) to centralise this process. Naturally, the institution has to cover its own costs and make a profit - hence the use of interest. Voila - the bank. The main difference between this and part of the ideal communist government is that this one charges a fee for the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, and requires skill on the part of the poor.
(And yes, I've just referred to entrepreneurs and capitalist fat cats as 'poor'. If they had enough money, they wouldn't be borrowing any, now would they. ^_^ )
Re: VAT
Re: VAT
1) tax should be proportionate to income and wealth
2) taxes should be certain and not arbitrary
3) taxes should be levied as conveniently as possible
4) the administrative cost of taxation should be as low as possible.
However, taxes tend to deviate slightly from strict proportionality (i.e. a neutral tax which does not influence behaviour) because tax is a useful tool to persuade people to act in a certain way.
However, post-1990 Poland decided that it was better to introduce a flat tax rate as a percentage of income, because it was easier to administer, and tax evasion dropped considerably.
Re: VAT
*"Luxuries" by means of a negative definition: many otherwise VATable items are exempted because they are necessities (e.g. childrens' clothes).
*Most goods which have been "subjected to a process" (e.g. roasted and salted peanuts, whereas raw peanuts are VAT-exempt)
*Fuel, albeit at a reduced rate negotiated by the Major government when the EU *told* the UK to charge VAT on fuel "or else" (see below for why this was)
*Almost all services, e.g. waiting at a table, providing food for consumption on the premises
And VAT is a European phenomenon, collected by HM Customs & Excise (not the Inland Revenue) and passed directly onto the EU (hence the fuel debacle).
Re: VAT
Fuel is however subject to fuel tax. Which is functionally the same thing.
Re: VAT
Re: VAT