Do you trust the state to protect and provide for you?

[TFloss]

Read a Times article on 12th June - ‘Middle-class vigilantes are turning against the state’. It talks about a growing trend of middle-class Brits taking matters into their own hands due to perceived failures of the state, particularly around police and public services creating a shift toward self-reliance, driven not by ideology but by necessity.

Doing own police work to solve crimes, private healthcare, private education, private security/community networks to prevent crime, more use of private transport, use of private mental health services, private carers, private bin collections.

Is this unreasonable or are you seeing this? Are people feeling like they have no choice but to step in where the state has stepped back?

In your opinion. I disagree.

You got a pretty good deal, by the way. 20 years as a net contributor, 30 years not.

Bet you never paid 62% marginal tax rate.

And your children weren't denied medical care 'because you're too rich'.

I doubt worked hard just so you could pay more tax though? You thought it was worth it, on balance, for your personal circumstances. Other people might decide it isn't worth it.
(Your kid did go to prison though didn't he? That's not cheap...)

I don't rely on the state. I used to expect the police to show up in an emergency / investigate a murder but no longer do. Thrilled for the Jaguar air tag couple, it is the way to go. That and U4HD CCTV all over your property. I will ge leaving if/ when Rachel from Accounts comes for my privately earned and invested pension as I don't have 20 years to reearn it. I would prefer a Hong Kong style approach to crime, & civil behaviour expectations. I can understand why educated young people are leaving the country / not doing babies with no hope of having their own home, keeping a fair % of their earning,never retiring or the police actually showing up when they need them.

How do you work that one out? The only thing I ever took out was my son’s education, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t using all the tax I paid during the 18 years he was at school, particularly given that it was 30% basic rate + 9% NI for most of them.

Determination of net contribution is much more nuanced than just tax band. A single, healthy childless person will be a net contributor at a much lower point than someone with children and a chronic illness.

Your kid did go to prison though didn't he? That's not cheap...)

Wtf?

Tell that to my relative with downs syndrome and the 60,000 others like him who cannot work or 'contribute to the social contract', ie be good little productive cogs in the capitalist machine.

I suppose we should take away his PIP and Universal Credit benefits and gas him, as the Nazis did to over 280,000 learning disabled Germans in the 1930s, to save taxpayers funding the £34 billion a year that is spent supporting vulnerable adults with learning disabilities?

Then you might be able to afford a few more batches of avocado on organic tuscan artisan bread for breakfast every day.

£40k income is about break-even for covering state services, which is conveniently close to the higher tax rate. Like all tax-payers, you recieved your own education (your DC's counts against his imaginary balance sheet, not yours) and will get your own pension.

It depends which state services you need. Surely that’s obvious?

Do you realise that current level of taxation is the highest we've ever had? and that it's only in recent years those top tax payers are denied services they are paying for?

Because that’s the way a civilised society operates.

We need to learn history. Do you know what happened in Russia is 1917-23? They also decided to take wealth from wealthy and redistribute to poor via state structures. It wasn't pretty. We aren't there (yet, Corbyn would lead us there pronto), but extreme taxation and vilification of those better of is not that dissimilar.

They’re not denied the services they’re paying for. They’re entitled to a state education for their children, free healthcare, in fact every non means tested service. What they don’t get is child benefit above a very generous threshold or subsidised childcare which only applies for a short period of most working lives.

Sounds like you live in South Africa like me. Middle class and upwards pay for everything twice. Can’t trust the government for anything so we private school our kids, pay for private medical insurance, live in gated estates and pay for private security, have to have a car because public transport is unsafe, have to have solar because electricity is unreliable… and we pay taxes.

And this is all in pursuit of a more socialist system of equality.

Oh get off your ridiculous , self-righteous high horse.

Your relative and others like him are obviously fully funded by the welfare state.

That is perfectly compatible with saying that the welfare state has to benefit everyone in society.

That if you disproportionately extract almost all the funding for the welfare state from a tiny proportion of society - and don't even let them benefit from it - they won't continue to fund it.

Small tip: maligning those who fund it - as you just did - doesn't make them particularly disposed to continue to fund it either.

Do you and your relative want a welfare state to continue? Then start acting like it.

If you want to continue living in a country with a welfare state you have no choice about funding it.

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/boy-denied-treatment-nhs-hospital-private-school-kingston-richmond-b1231805.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14813331/amp/Suicide-risk-young-daughter-refused-NHS-mental-health-counselling-private-school.html

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/sick-private-school-pupils-denied-access-education

It's the last straw, tbh.

I have many options.

All of which preclude living and working in a country with a welfare state.

Your first link indicates that the mother is mistaken and the second applies only to Scotland.

Not at all. I can choose different patterns of working in the UK. I can also choose to live in other countries with a welfare state which don't screw over those who fund it. Most of the EU, in fact.

The mother isn't wrong. They're panicking and backtracking.

Yes, and yes.

You've made me realise that many people appear to believe that the welfare state is a transaction, e.g. "because I pay into it, I can and I will avail myself of everything it offers".

But that's not what the welfare state is for. A welfare state is for people who need it and who have limited means to pay. A wealthy person may want free childcare but they do not need it.

Higher rate tax payers are not denied access to the majority of essential services, e.g. NHS, police, schools, etc. are all 'free' for you and everyone else to make use of, if they need them.

Moreover, we all pay for services we might never use. For instance, you pay for my cancer care (thank you). If you call an ambulance, or the police, then I'm happy to pay for the service you are given.

The OPs original question related to 'a growing trend of middle-class Brits taking matters into their own hands due to perceived failures of the state'. Perhaps this is partly true...

...but - I'd argue it's also a failure of middle-class 'Brits' failing to recognise what a welfare state is actually for - it's not a transaction, but rather it's a moral duty if you want to be a member of this society.

Whilst it isn't entirely transactional, it does need to be seen as a reasonable 'deal' to everyone. Especially those disproportionately funding it. And it no longer is.

But perhaps the problem isn’t that the wealthy are paying for a welfare state but moreover that we seem to be paying more and more and getting less and less (in terms of quality and readily available service) and that is what the gripe is about and the need to seek out alternatives…

Those who don’t pay yet get the same service don’t have the luxury of complaining about what they are getting so just put up with it…

Absolutely not. Private healthcare, private education.

Both choices. Those services are universally available free of charge.

That's a fair point