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.

It's a little further down that road that any western civilised country, to the extent that the USA is now a third world country with a lot of rich people. I don't use the correct term 'developing country' because it's heading in the opposite direction.

I started working g at 16, paid tax and NI until 50. I worked in the fire service providing life saving skills. At 50 my marriage ended because my husband sexually abused my (his but I don’t talk about that) 7 year old daughter. I divorced him. I now can’t get a job. I’m 54 now raising 3 children (under 12) ALONE. I currently get maintenance but that will stop in February I guess when he goes to PRISON.

Your ideal world would not help me, someone who has happily paid for others for 34 years but now through no fault of my own is needing benefits.

on a separate note have you any idea how much a fire engine costs per hour? So you’d be happy to pay that yourself never mind the cost of police ambulance and all the other services you might use that are provided because we pay tax?

why don’t you move to USA, I’m sure you’re a TRUMP supporter with those ideas.

You sound like a deeply unpleasant, troubled person. God I’d hate to know someone like you in real life

The idea that everyone would simply save enough for disability, chronic illness, redundancy or a severely disabled child ignores reality. Many people develop life-changing conditions in childhood or early adulthood before they've had decades to build savings. Others are born with disabilities. No amount of personal responsibility changes that.

You’re retired? There’s no fool like an old fool springs to mind.

Seriously this person is deluded, a troll or just genuinely thick as a brick

I have some sympathy with what you're saying, in that I think we provide too much welfare support and 'penalise' wealth creation that benefits all.

However, I don't think it's quite as simple as that. Let's say you create a business, from the start, and consider yourself self-made, and you have private education for your kids and private healthcare for your family. You think you're not reliant on the state, but in many ways you are.

• Your business's deliveries rely on the road system.

• We're stable in large part because we've got an army.

• Your contracts rely indirectly on there being a functional and effective legal system.

• You're eating food that's reliably safe because of the Food Standards Agency.

• You're taking medicine that's safe because of their regulators.

• Let's say you're JK Rowling and you sell a billion books... you're doing so because all your readers have been taught to read at the cost of the public purse.

I don't think anyone's as independent as they think.

Although I do agree that there are too many people not contributing.

You haven't got my back up. I see this sort of thing from Americans all the time, people who lack education and empathy and are deeply ignorant of how the world works.

I once saw a MAGA interviewed by a British journalist at a Trump rally. He had only a few rotten stumps for teeth. He said he had been in agony with his teeth for years.

He was asked whether he'd like Trump to introduce access to dental care and he said absolutely not because he'd much rather continuing to suffer than have to countenance the thought that other people who didn't deserve it (read people of colour) were getting dental health treatment themselves .

That American level of thinking is quite extreme. You usually see people like you OP, with their smug ignorant libertarian nonsense, do a reverse ferret as soon as they fall on hard times themselves a la Ayn Rand (look her up).

I'm not mad at you OP, it'll never happen anyway so there's no point getting angry about it.

But I wonder in your ideal who oversees the services and who regulates prices.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think our institutions are good at all and I don't think they try their best for people either but I just think this could lead to even worse services that are in no way accountable.

Again I'm not claiming that the current way is good or even accountable but I just think it would leave the potential for even worse outcomes.

I can't agree with you though when it comes to children, I do think we should look after them as best we can.

I do wonder though why so many are saying 'because we need to look after each other, we are a society'. Meanwhile so many now don't even speak to their neighbours and we all obsess about our individuality.

Let's be honest people used to look after each other properly, provide value to their tribes and be a part of each others lives. We have a bastardised version of that now that we call society.

Thick as a brick was my first thought.

I think some people just live in their nice little bubble and stupidly think everyone else can/should be able to love like them. Oblivious to the reality of disabilities, abusive relationships and poverty.

Of course it’s great if you can financially support yourself and your family but for a lot of people it just isn’t possible.

I, for one, wouldn't sit by and watch a neighbour suffer purely because they failed to save enough money to live.Everyone contributes, so everyone is protected when bad luck strikes.

Hello Scrooge. Nice attitude.

We are all only a few significant events away from the prospect of destitution. With the exception of the super rich.

The reasons for poverty are pervasive, multi-generational and multi-faceted. Not everyone can afford what you are talking about.

For every Jeff Bezos there are multitudes of workers doing what it takes to make his money.

So, if you propose to lift unskilled wages threefold great.

But what do you propose those with disabilities or health issues that mean they can’t even earn that.

Plus, with AI, employment will change and not everyone will be able to work.

So we just let them starve and die?

Lovely.

I wish we lived in a world where we were paid and valued enought that we could all afford to pay for things equally.

But hey, selfishness exists - clearly.

The capitalism is WHY we have to have welfare system - for the exploited, forgotten, disregarded and walked all over of society.

Wow. Just wow.

Is it a child's fault if they are born into a poor family who can't afford to feed them or pay for their schooling?

Is it a person's fault if they are born with a severe disability and can't work? Or an accident happens to them as an adult, should they die in agony after a car accident because they can't afford an ambulance? What if someone gets cancer and can't afford treatment and is too ill to work?

What if a child is abused by their parents, how would the child pay for the police?

You are suggesting that we leave children, and people, to die on the streets, and suffer abuse. Have you really thought this through? Do you have zero compassion?

Services like the police could not function properly on ad hoc pay as you use payments
There are so many other things that stand out to me reading your post

Obviously never worked for the NHS! Paying for an ambulance won’t make it quicker.

My view is you are quite mad for expecting me (a stranger) to pay for you being out of work or having a ton of kids. The only person who should pay for those things is the person making the choices ie you.

@LettingTheBadThingsGo So basically you want to go back to a Victorian style model? Leaving people open to extreme poverty, extreme slums, and you’re either wealthy or in the gutter?

You are probably a sad troll but whatever you are behind your keyboard you are the worst kind of human to even think this.

Of course you got 'alot' of people hitting agree, OP, because unfortunately there is a lot of blind ignorance and bigotry out there at this point in time. Doesn't make you right.

Incidentally, would your master plan for education include teaching kids how to spell 'vulnerable', 'occasionally' and 'argument', the basics of capitalisation rules and subject–verb agreement, the difference between 'they' and 'their', and how to write 'a lot'? It'd be jolly handy if so, wouldn't it?

I can't believe the number of well thought out, good faith replies to an obvious and low-effort troll.

Well they used to run the fire service by subscription - it worked really badly. Can't wait to see the same principle applied to national defence.

How would it work for things like sewage? Pay or dump it in the street?

If I choose not to pay for prisons, does that mean I can't be sent to one?

I would like to see certain things (the Royal family being top of the list) paid for by public subscription though.

Nothing is free this is what people miss especially relating to the NHS it costs the average tax payer c£5000 pa my BUPA for family of 4 (I'm in 50's with pre existing conditions) costs me c£1200. The NHS has to end soon it is unsustainable and deadly to many.

Are you Margaret ( there's no such thing as society) Thatcher reincarnated?

You referred to the doctor as ‘he’s and now ‘mr hard worker’.

You are either a man or a woman who has internalised misogyny. You completely lack empathy and imagination.

I suggest you don’t have children. They need empathy and love just as much as money.

Stupid idea.