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.

So if someone’s child gets murdered today and the parents haven’t paid for the police service, the murderer gets away with it? Or if you become too sick or disabled or lose your job and you’re simply too poor to pay for the hospital service, and you end up in a horrific accident, you’d be happy to be left in agony to die?

Also just to put it in to context, we have evidence that human beings have been working together to look after their vulnerable since paelolithic times 500,000 years ago. It's part of human nature to care and support each other and we know people flourish when they're part of an 'tribe' . To suggest we can do away with that says a lot about your survival instincts!

I'm a victim of a crime and I have to pay for the police on top?

I don't agree with you but I do think the way things are currently run is bonkers. There simply shouldn't be the option not to work - unless you are disabled. The fact that things like anxiety, ADHD etc can allow you to opt out of work is madness. Yet some of these people still seem to be well enough to have and look after children - possibly the most difficult job of all.

Some suggestions are just too stupid to engage with.

How about this OP?

A man rapes a woman, she can’t afford the police, he can so he pays them off, and continues

This is called police corruption

OR

Your 5 year old dying in your arms because you can’t afford antibiotics

OR

all disabled people who can’t work just having to beg on the street to survive like in a third world country

Any civilised society should be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable

@LettingTheBadThingsGo you could be disabled tomorrow. this would mean you use up your money, and then die of starvation and exposure . Your loved ones would probably spend all their money to prevent this as well, so tgey would die of exposure and starvation as well, making you pretty much a murderer (as you support the system).

And what's the deal with corporation tax in your utopia? Because that makes up a LOT of what the government currently spend - are individual companies just going to use the defence and road infrastructure for free or will they have to contribute?

Clearly zero understanding compassion or consideration for those unemployed or sick or vulnerable it sounds a terribly ruthless society!

Perhaps it would suit you but I have a much better awareness of lower incomes and vulnerability than you clearly have.

I engaged @gotmyselfintoapickle I probably shouldn’t have

How to say you’re a facist without saying you’re a facist 😂😂😂

Soooooo if you are raped or assaulted in any way, you think it's fair enough that you should have to pay for the assistance of police and health services as a result?

What if you were to be one of those lucky, financially comfortable people so you have a child because you decide you can afford it and then it is born with hugely, massively, cripplingly expensive medical needs which you actually cannot cover, because we cannot actually predict everything that will happen in life. You're happy to leave your child to die?

What about people who are just, frankly, rather stupid? Not harmful, maybe even very kind and lovely but not smart. Who cannot get the kind of job which supports this cost of medical and other care. Should we just let them starve in the street?

Is that really the kind of world you want to live in? Of course not. Don't be so fucking ridiculous - and I consider myself right of centre.

I actually think this is quite a helpful thread. It shows the ultimate consequence of a lot of right wing thinking and how impossible and destructive it would actually be to society as a whole. Obviously OP's suggestion is deeply ignorant but so are a lot of less extreme proposals along similar lines.

But what if your disabilities and ND mean you can't ever earn much above minimum wage, and then you get too ill to work anymore. You don't have kids as you know you can't afford them but you also wouldn't have a single penny to your name and would just die of starvation?!

Indeed- imagine having to work side by side with a man bragging about his rapes and the fact that he'll never get caught or put away because he has money and he only rapes poor women who cant afford the police to intervene.

Even if you are one of the ones that are ok financially it would be horrible to live in a society with lots of desperate starving people. Central LA was horrifying people with mental health issues wandering the streets shouting and weeing publicly. We had to leave immediately with tearful kids.

Have you, your parents or grandparents ever received any benefits . Do any of use use the NHS, maternity care,schools, dentist, child benefit, school transport, school meals, sickpay, pension, prescriptions,glasses and eye tests. Or are you just looking for clickbait.

I call reverse

There are countries that are like that.
A lot of people die.

Is that what you think would be better than how things are now in the UK?
Children starving to death, disabled people dying because they cant afford the tens of thousands of pounds, millions over the years, it takes to buy their care, elderly people sleeping on the street because they didnt have the good sense to die early enough?

Insurance is great until you need to claim then you quickly become uninsurable

If you genuinely think it would be better, or even possible, for everyone to pay as they go for everything their whole lives then theres something very wrong with you.

I'm still itching to..... but. I. must. not. 😂

Plus minimum wage jobs are essential. Look at all the minimum wage workers who had to continue working through covid.

If people can't afford to live on minimum wage then how on earth would society function without any of those employees.

Absolutely not.

I would choose NOT to live in this world of yours!!!

Maybe read some Dickens or John Rawls or just any book really.

Are you hard of thinking or something? Surely no one could be this stupid? Even if you were this selfish (which to be fair you clearly are) who knows what could happen to you. You could get an aggressive form of cancer tomorrow that means you can’t work and all your savings go on expensive medical treatment, your insurance refuses to pay for the advanced drugs you need. You end up loosing your house. That sick person you see dying in the gutter you would have gladly stepped over yesterday thinking “it’s their own fault for being lazy and not working hard” now becomes you. Even from your utterly selfish viewpoint. …. still think it’s a good idea?