To want a society where we just pay for ourselves

[LettingTheBadThingsGo]

Okay this is going to get some backs up but it's also how I feel so..
I wish we could just live in a society where we all just pay for ourselves.
So you want to have children - you pay for it all yourself. No benefits of any kind.
You want to see a GP - You pay a fee and get the service
You need the police - You pay a fee and get the service
You want education for your kids - you pay for it and get to choose where to send them

Nobody gets a pension or any benefits. However we all know this and as such we pay no tax/NI and save for ourselves.

Obviously there would have to be a phased input over a large number of years (like 30)

I want to know that if I need the police I can get them here in 5 mins. If I need an ambulance I want to know I can get it here in 5 mins. I don't want to not have these services because there is a rubbish 'free' service because there is not enough being allocated to them because it's all being spent on things I disagree with (welfare, council houses)

This would make everyone responsible for themselves. Those who work hard would be better off. Those who don't work will be worse off. Seems fair to me.

Everyone would save from day 1 in case they become ill or disabled and need to support themselves or have a disabled child (although they could choose not to have children in the first place).

I find it very weird that we live in a capitalist society where so many people are being supported by welfare. To me that is the opposite of a capitalist society.

Obviously there are some things that could never be allocated to each person such as defence of the country. There would have to still be a 'country charge' to every person to cover things that just could not be split. Street lighting would probably have to come under this as well. However roads could be covered by a charge to each person based on their mileage each year.

Yes it would take lots of thought and as I said would have to be implemented over a large number of years. However this would lead to a more productive society as well as better services. Obviously on the basis of a thread I haven't thought everything out but hopefully you all get the idea.

Anybody who didn't want to live like that could leave of course and live somewhere else.

So anyone else agree - no tax or ni - save and pay for yourself. Just pay a 'country charge' to cover things that can't be allocated like defence of country. Everything else is private (healthcare, police, pensions) and you save for it all yourself.

The only people who I can imagine not wanting this is those that live on the hard work of others ie life time welfare claimants. For everyone else surely they would be better off.

Among the many things wrong with this idea, just because you are paying for the police and ambulance doesn't mean they will come in 5min. I can't even get an uber to come on 5min and I'm paying for that!

You wouldn’t just have to pay for the murder investigation but the court, court staff etc and then pay for the attacker to be imprisoned for as long as you could afford the fees!

I work full time, I don't claim any benefits, I don't support your idea at all

That's not a society.

What happens to those of us who were born with our disabilities? I'm on 3 tablets a day plus another when I need it. I have a lot of hospital appointments because one treatment is a pain killing injection. I'm also on waiting lists for tests

So quoting your 'if you don't like it live elsewhere', you clearly don't like how the UK runs so go live elsewhere

ODFOD

Are you on glue?

So far everyone is saying my idea is terrible. I wonder if most of the people who have posted so far are unemployed, claiming benefits and sitting at home. Thus of course they want the free money to continue.
I just can't understand why Mr Hardworker who pays a ton of tax and gets nothing for it would want to continue like this.

Ive worked since the age of 15 and I am in my 40s now- worked constantly. I still think your post is utter nonsense.

Also, if you dont like how the UK is currently run now then doesnt the "well just go live elsewhere" also apply to YOU? noone is forcing you to live here- you can move if you dont like it here 😆

That's an idea, actually, we could all just rob people with OP's ideology to make a living. I doubt they can afford to imprison us all indefinitely.

I pay about £1000/ month tax, that's £1200 a year.

My nursery fees are currently subsidised by about £500/ month so now I have £500/ month to put to ask these new expenses.

So that includes:

• health insurance
• rubbish collection
• road/infrastructure maintenance?! Not sure how that works lol
• save for my daughters schooling; private schools seem to be at least £12000/ year up so i guess she'll not go to school. But i can't stay home with her or I'll have no money
• police, fire, etc
• pension contributions

I think I'd die. And I'm healthy and well paid.

But thinking it through like that raises a good point, how do you propose roads and infrastructure (gas, elec, Internet, public buildings) are maintained?

I'm very happy to live in a society where I support those less able to contribute.

Myself and my husband are both net contributors. We're both proud and happy about that.

I think perhaps it’s best you go away and have a good hard think about who would for the below in your fantasy world:

• The courts
• The prisons
• Police force
• Healthcare
• Fire service
• Children in the care system due to abuse/neglect/parents deceased/parents in prison
• Social services
• Disabled people
• The military
• Transport and infrastructure
• Education

If you don’t have the emotional intelligence to come up with an emotional intelligent answer I suggest you fuck off to go and live on North Sentinal Island. The locals will ensure you pay your way there.

So what happens if your other half becomes so ill they can now no longer work and you have to pay for all of their medical expenses and still keep the household running?

What if it’s the other way round- do you think he would stay with you and pay for everything? What happens when you get kicked to the curb, is your only choice now to shuffle off this mortal coil because you are ill, cannot work and cannot pay for medical assistance and the drugs you need to keep you alive.

You have clearly been so lucky to never had to deal with lifelong medical issues or critical injuries that prevent a return to work and a normal life.

I pay 10k a year on tax and NI etc, but the GP, Police, childcare, dentist, prescriptions, country tax, road tax, my children’s schooling, their GP and dentists appointments, my bin collections, savings for my children’s university fees etc would all need to come out of that 10k?

So mega rich people will be laughing but average hard working people would be effed. We would still be in a capabilist mindset, so every year those changes would increase, we’d all be over a barrel and would have no choice but to keep paying higher and higher charges while the company owners got richer and richer.

yeah sounds idyllic

A background and career in finance? words fail me 😂

We are approaching the point where the whole system is going to come crashing down as it's unsustainable - we are in massive debt and there is alot of wasted money by those in charge. So from that point of view something like this is likely. Plenty of countries don't have our bloated welfare systems and are much more efficient and better run eg Singapore, Japan. Anyone who had visited those countries can see how much better they are. We are no longer a rich country our GDP per capita puts us as about 30th and falling to be overtaken by Poland etc. which were very poor countries when I was young.

@LettingTheBadThingsGo
So, I'm 61. Worked all my life, apart from a self funded career break when I was 40. Decent if not spectacular career in the civil service. Own my home. Brought up a child as a single parent - adopted so saving the state a fortune.
Everything looking rosy, until I was diagnosed with incurable cancer in February. I estimate my treatment (chemo) has cost in the region on £120,000 plus I will be on drugs for the rest of my life.
In your model how would I have saved that much?

Let's say you start work at 16. You are on minimum wage, working full time. You arent paying any taxes.
At 25 you get hit by a bus and left paralysed from the neck down.
How much have you saved by not paying tax from the age of 16 to the age of 25?
I'm no financial wizard but I'm guessing not enough to pay for round the clock care for 50 or 60 years when your insurance company wiggles out of paying out because they claim you didnt look left and right the required 5 times before crossing the road.

So. That person. In your dream country. They die and thats ok, right?

No, because I benefit when everything and everyone around me is looked after, even if I’m not directly involved. It’s also better for the economy as a well as keeping society functioning as a whole.

Saying that a service is inefficient is starkly different to say that the people working within them are only interested in keeping their job and remaining inefficient.

In any case, I disagree with you. Perhaps because I actually do have friends who work on the frontline, whereas you’re getting your information from the media?

People working in frontline services generally say they’re underfunded, under resourced and underpaid. That conditions, for example in ICU or midwifery wards, are horrifying because they simply don’t have enough staff to cover the work needed and so are forced to cover more patients than is safe and to work back to back or longer than safe shifts.

Or in overcrowded prisons where inmates are forced to share what should be 1-person cells and who don’t get time out of their cells as there aren’t enough staff to provide activities and so self harm and suicide rates are sky rocketing.

Or workers in government call centres who have to deal with angry members of the public who’ve been waiting for hours because they don’t employ enough staff.

Or police who simply don’t have enough officers to stay on top of lower levels crimes and so are forced to prioritise the most violent cases.

Who would pay for roads? Would you just contribute to the ones you use?

Would you be sourcing your own food and taking your rubbish to the dump as no one in those jobs could afford to live here?

How would you feel if you did break your leg and there were no hospitals as there were no staff to work in them?

Thanks for taking the time to write out your views. I understand what you are saying.
However I think there are lots of arguements.

For example how many people are watching their bright, clever children have a rubbish education because they are in a class too big which is being disrupted constantly by sen children. By having a small education budget nobody seems to be getting a good education anymore (unless they pay to send their kids privately.)
So who is benefitting in this education system paid for by the state/taxpayer. Parents of sen kids are writing threads constantly saying their child is not getting the right treatment. Parents of bright children are writing threads saying they are sick of their kids education being disrupted by the sen kids. The teachers are run ragged and quitting. All this because the needs of the system far outweigh the money we have to run it.

So the answer is to give more money to education and hire more teachers and have smaller classes perhaps splitting children into bright, average and disabled. That sounds great except the country can't afford to allocate more to education because of all the other demands on it.

The same argument could be applied to healthcare and no doubt lots of areas of spending.

Can we all at least acknowledge that the current way of doing things is not working.

You’d have to plan the crime when you knew they had some big bills coming - pregnancy, illness, etc. So the choice could be pay for maternity services OR pay to lock up your attacker. That sort of thing.
Crime could pay v nicely.

We are considering moving back to EU having lived in Copenhagen 2920 to 2022 - more complicated now but could use nomad visas as we fit criteria for many as quite high earners with our business and can work remote - if we do, it won’t be because of tax or people claiming benefits or immigration which Labour have a far better handle on than the Tory’s did, -and nor are wealthy - it will be because I don’t want to live in a country where Farage has25% of the vote and the Tory’s as they are at the moment another20% - and no wearent rabid lefties- very much in the middle. Just not liking the vibe here - walking past rabid headlines in Express/Mail every day - they seem to have it in for anyone who isn’t old or late middle aged at minimum or right wing -usually all of them combined. Doesn’t matter what good any party did for society that isn’t Reform or the Tory’s - they will find the negative angle!!