To not understand why so many people view the wealth of others as public property

[FrogspawnSmoothie]

I've been noticing a lot of posts lately saying things like 'we need to sort out the wealth divide' etc and calling for the wealthy to pay for xyz 'because they can afford to', and I must say I've never quite shared this mentality.

I can see why people start to think this way when we're constantly told things like '99% of the nation's wealth is owned by 1% of the population', making it sound like they're hoarding resources. But the thing is, it's not a tin of biscuits given to the population which is now being hoarded by a few greedy chubsters. It may well have been foreign investment, for instance, which wasn't otherwise going to be invested in a UK business to then benefit the economy through taxes as it does. I go to work and earn my income, and that money is mine - I imagine most people would consider their paycheck to be their own.

I think of it like two farmers. One innovates in his processes and works out how to grow more apples with the same resources. He then reinvests his extra profit into better equipment and buys more land. Eventually, he owns 75% of the apples in the town, despite being only one of many farmers. I'm not convinced he now needs to start giving his apples to the other disgruntled farmers who envy his wealth, especially as he's now paying much more tax.

I'll admit it's a pretty simplistic way of looking at it (I'm no economist) but I'm not convinced that all the people moaning about the rich have given it a particularly nuanced consideration either. I was listening to some prat of a manbunned barista banging on about socialism and 'redistribution of wealth' in Costa today, and gotta admit I just thought to myself 'sounds like you should've worked harder at school, mate.' 🤷‍♀️

Life isn’t fair, it’s that simple. You can’t make it so with ridiculous socialism.

At the root of it all, I also suspect this to be the case.

I think lots of people (the majority perhaps) live their lives in our little human sphere, but really we're just primates who learnt to use tools and evolved from there. 'Fairness' is a human concept and there's only so much we can really ultimately control despite our moralistic ambitions.

Not that we shouldn't strive to improve society and living conditions, but it seems to me that a lot of people seem preoccupied with fairness and privilege etc and don't really reflect on how we can improve our economy to fund all this (outside of 'that rich guy should pay for it').

I feel the left often have the healthiest attitude towards societal issues but often fall down with the practicalities, whereas capitalism and the right tend to be more realistic about growing the economy but have a much more ruthless 'he who wins' mentality. I guess it's the old equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome debate.

One of the problems with increasing wealth distribution is that anyone with a pension is going to be affected. All our pensions comprise shares in big companies and we all want them to do well. We think big Plcs are nowt to do with us, in reality whether you're a nurse, accountant, retail worker - you indirectly have shares. Anything which devalues these big companies will hit pension values.

Quote from another poster

*Not through family wealth, good luck or other vague reasons. I created my own business and built it up. It now earns me 7 figures a year.

Instead of seeing these resources as finite, we need to see them as available to anyone who wants them. If you’re working a salaried job you’re literally earning what someone else thinks your worth. So look for a business idea that will allow you to earn unlimited money.

Anyone can do what I did. I don’t have a degree, didn’t get any financial help to start, I had €100 to invest in my business and I used it to start my website.

Our education teaches us to be cogs in a machine, no school teaches kids how to be entrepreneurs. That’s where the issue lies - we’ve been taught that the limited resources are only available to a select few. It’s bullshit.*

Witha few exceptions l totally agree with this ^^
Of course some start with more opportunities than others but essentially peoples choices have an awful lot to do with their success or not as the case may be.

After living for a few years in the US it is stark how financial success is viewed differently in the UK. People are envious and feel it should be them, without looking to themselves to actually earn it.

Whilst huge corporations should be forced to fully pay fair and correct tax, wealthy individuals who are paid high salaries by organisations and pay PAYE, ie a lot of City workers, should be able to keep their wealth (after tax) as beyond a certain point there is no incentive to progress. It becomes a balancing act.

@GrumpiestOldWoman

One of the problems with increasing wealth distribution is that anyone with a pension is going to be affected. All our pensions comprise shares in big companies and we all want them to do well. We think big Plcs are nowt to do with us, in reality whether you're a nurse, accountant, retail worker - you indirectly have shares. Anything which devalues these big companies will hit pension values.

Difference is that those with gold plated public sector pensions aren't affected by market conditions. They get their defined contribution tax free lump sum and pension regardless. So everyone isn't equal and for once public sector workers benefit!

High risk dirty jobs like working in social care and driving buses at the height of a pandemic?

The vast majority were likely already doing those jobs beforehand.

I can't see most of the people who get paid shitloads to work on an oil rig for nine months if the year choosing this if they could get the same money working in a ship and seeing their family every night.

I used to make £41k driving dustcarts in the commercial waste sector. I certainly wouldn't have got up at 3am every day if I could've earned that working in the warehouse 8-4.

Hmm I get what you're saying and why you feel that way. I grew up middle class with a decent education and got straight As and a 2:1 degree but I have ADHD and simply couldn't handle the stresses and strictures of corporate life, so I work with my hands now instead. I understand that that means I won't earn as much as many people and that's fine with me. I don't claim benefits even at times when I technically could (except child benefit) because I'm just about ok and I know I could have been a higher earner if I had the wherewithal to stick with jobs I found dull. But I'm not who this is about.

Many people grow up in extreme poverty, in dysfunctional families with abuse and addiction around them from the start. They go to sub-standard schools where their peer group singles out achievers for bullying. They may make it into a grammar school if they have ability, but they may not. Even if they do they may not have the right accent and manner to get into a well-paid job, or they may have things like missing teeth that put off prospective employers.

For some people, the game is rigged against them from the start, and it's obscene that we have people living in abject poverty struggling through miserable lives when as a PP said the landed gentry of Britain own huge estates that make up half the country. I visited a friend from uni once who comes from a famously wealthy family. Her drive alone went on for 5 minutes and from the (huge) ancestral family mansion in the Highlands, everything you could see belonged to her family. There is no need for one family to own so much hereditary wealth.

Then I went to visit another uni friend who lived in a tiny, grubby council house with her mum in Dunoon. She had worked like hell to get into uni but in the end got pregnant and had to drop out. Her self-esteem and self-belief were already destroyed by poverty and hopelessness before she ever got started in life. If she had had family help she could have managed to raise the baby and complete her studies, as some better off friends of mine did, but there was no chance for this. Now she lives in a rundown council estate in Glasgow, and that's her lot in life. I can only hope things will be better forher kids.

I know it feels unfair but firstly people aren't really talking about you when they talk about wealth, they're often talking about obscenely wealthy people who have more than they could ever possibly need, and secondly you have to think about the unbelievably shitty start some people get in life, and how we need to do all we can to mitigate that so more people get the chance in life to achieve their full potential.

Shop not ship

Whilst huge corporations should be forced to fully pay fair and correct tax, wealthy individuals who are paid high salaries by organisations and pay PAYE, ie a lot of City workers, should be able to keep their wealth (after tax) as beyond a certain point there is no incentive to progress. It becomes a balancing act.

Yes, taxing the rich becomes counter productive, such as the disastrous marginal tax rate of 62% on those earning just over £100k like doctors and dentists who reduced their hours so their earnings fell back under £100k to avoid it, or who refused extra shifts to avoid it.

I feel the left often have the healthiest attitude towards societal issues but often fall down with the practicalities, whereas capitalism and the right tend to be more realistic about growing the economy but have a much more ruthless 'he who wins' mentality. I guess it's the old equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome debate.

Yes, there needs to be a middle ground, rather than the usual extremes. Gordon Brown was a prime example of failing to think through the practicalities, hence why his tax changes caused a massive rise in self employment/one man limited companies - he completely failed to see the blindingly obvious fact that window cleaners, private tutors etc would become limited companies if it saved them tax due to tax reliefs on limited companies introduced by Brown himself. A prime example of a good idea in theory having unintended consequences due to not thinking about reality and behaviour.

Then I went to visit another uni friend who lived in a tiny, grubby council house with her mum in Dunoon. She had worked like hell to get into uni but in the end got pregnant and had to drop out. Her self-esteem and self-belief were already destroyed by poverty and hopelessness before she ever got started in life. If she had had family help she could have managed to raise the baby and complete her studies, as some better off friends of mine did, but there was no chance for this. Now she lives in a rundown council estate in Glasgow, and that's her lot in life. I can only hope things will be better forher kids.

Surely that's more down to having unprotected sex,, not taking the morning after pill, etc., rather than being society's fault? She had the power to stop it happening!

@msflibble

Oddly enough it was ADHD which made me despise office work and the structure.

You'd think I'd be dangerous operating heavy site machinery but in reality my perpetual restlessness helps me stay on my toes and keep scanning around. I'm learning mobile cranes at the moment and want to go all the way if possible - biggest can lift 1200 tonnes so there's defo a lot of scope to progress.

I think many people don't resent wealthy people - and that's the thing that strikes me about Mumsnet. Reading Mumsnet threads, you often come across posts from contributers who are comfortably off, who describe their own lifestyles as luxurious, who say in a response that they are ' living the lifestyle you describe', post that they are high and very high earners, and, generally others who are less well-off, continue to read the various threads: they are not so rankled with envy and indignation that they withdraw. I think the good thing about Mumsnet is that you can sample a range of advice coming from a range of sources. It is fascinating to hear about LongPauseNoReply's experience, and would be interesting to hear more about how they achieved their success. Because there are high-flying lawyers on Mumsnet and medics, you can actually get very useful advice.

I think that many people would choose to make a difference by sharing their wealth, through some means. They would feel fulfilled be seeing another person's suffering alleviated. Clearly when one reads that some girls skip school because they can't afford sanitary protection, and some kids don't get an evening meal, the only response possible is that something needs to be done about this at a government level, because something is certainly wrong with the way our society is working.

FrogspawnSmoothie I don’t think bolt is a fair analogy. I’ve read somewhere that you can broadly predict GCSE performance at age 3 based on demographic factors. Social mobility is relatively low. That to me is the issue. I don’t like the idea of a wealth tax And very much hate some of the ideas mooted around savings or pensions raids (to me that is state theft) but I do think more has to be done to even up the playing field so more poorer children have better opportunities. I’d personally not object to paying higher taxes if more went on services like education.

whereas capitalism and the right tend to be more realistic about growing the economy

How does Brexit fit into that myth? The current right wing in our country are interested only in the wealth of the super rich. Putting everything in the hands of hedge funds (such as care of learning disabled people) does not tend to improve the lot of anyone except fund managers.

@FrogspawnSmoothie glad you found a way to translate it into a decent salary! I'm afraid I couldn't but I'm happy enough making things nevertheless

But even education is no longer a ‘service’ sailingblue. Look into the finances of academy chains to understand the reality. It doesn’t benefit staff or children.

It's a difficult one because I think your post ignores how intergenerational wealth and opportunity can skew the situation

Exactly, in many parts of London when you got on the ladder will determine your future wealth regardless of how much you earn. So I have colleagues in their 50s who have 1.2m houses with tiny mortgages, pensions worth close to a million etc. I won't see the same exponential growth in my property & paid more initially. The pension scheme is no longer the same. I also don't expect to see a free NHS & state pension in my old age.

Read different newspapers who aren't owned by the same people and you may see things a little clearer. People have become incredibly wealthy through Brexit (and the pandemic) through syphoning off money, moving assets, inside betting deals and basically corruption... From tax payers money. Please stop believing the lies. The British government are giving £225 million (tax payers money) to a 'company' which has £100 in it's coffers.... Which happens to be owned by an advisor to a Conservative MP.... This is for PPE that cannot be used and it was never done in a proper procurement process. Legitimate companies have been ignored throughout. Deals like this are happening frequently yet the public just can't care enough to look at the detail! Tory friends being made incredibly wealthy overnight with corrupt deals. The facts are out there. Now keep paying your taxes and voting for our friendly, well-meaning nationalistic party like a good British law abiding citizen.... Because you know they only want to support hard workers! Fact is doesn't matter if you're comfortably well off, you will be shafted too. Fairness has never been more of an issue as there has not been a government in living memory as corrupt as ours right now. That is not being "preoccupied".

My son spent 16 months in a hospital far from home (a 2 day round trip to visit him for 2 hours). It cost the NHS 12k a WEEK to keep him there. He received no treatment (there wasn’t any).

The owner of that hospital paid himself millions per year - & presumably used the money to build the business etc. This was public money going straight into someone’s pocket.

It wasn’t buying great specialist care. The CQC has been trying to shut the place down for the past 6 months.

Ironically the new chief executive seems a lot better & seems to have some concept of value not being measured in profit.

@user1497207191
I don't see it that way. There's a reason that poverty and unplanned pregnancy are strobgly linked, and it's not because poor people choose to stay poor. Also, as I said, I knew other girls who experienced the same problem but who had families with the time and resources to help them through it. She didn't have that. She had selt-esteem issues too from a lifetime of poverty and deprivation. Having seen the home where she grew up, the state of her mother and the long-term absence of her father, it was hard for me to conclude that the direction her life went was a coincidence.

Not all wealth provides for future generations though. There are plenty of examples of huge wealth being squandered and lost. Historically my DM's family had a lot of land and wealth, they also had a lot of children and second and third marriages, in two generations that wealth has been so diluted as to not exist any more.

glad you found a way to translate it into a decent salary! I'm afraid I couldn't but I'm happy enough making things nevertheless

Thanks. I may still live to regret it the day I drop a girder on someone's head (or not live to regret it if I drop it on myself!).

But had I not discovered my love for operating heavy machinery I'd likely have just gone back to a lower paid job for the sake of my sanity.

Prig - you are right about the corruption. The procurement of PPE being an example. No-one seems to care though.

High earners are not really the issue. It's massive accumulated capital that entrenches inequality and destabilises societies

This

On a more practical level, reducing wealth inequality benefits everyone. I live in Germany which is less unequal than the UK and I feel much safer here - there is markedly less violent crime. Quality of life is far better for less well-off people. There are lots of benefits available and there isn't really this culture of hating people who claim them.