AIBU to think if you're a net negative in tax you shouldn't be able to vote?

[SBGM247]

Trigger warning: strong political views / rant incoming. A shrinking group is expected to fund an expanding system. The system increasingly penalises work while rewarding dependency.

AIBU to think the modern state is a parasite, and that only those who are a net positive in taxes should be able to vote, rather than forcing working people to support an ever-growing dependent class?

Currently ~21% of working-age adults are economically inactive, meaning not working and not actively seeking work (according to a research brief from the House of Commons). Democracy is broken if voters can vote themselves benefits paid for by others. Representation should be weighted toward those with demonstrable responsibility and contribution.

Currently, the state is extractive and hollowing out the middle class. As anyone that has the eyes to see and ears to hear will know, dependency is rising and and demographics are changing at a rate not seen outside of wartime.

To address this simply, I think if you’re on benefits you should lose the right to vote until you’re a net positive. That would restore equilibrium.

This is essentially Chesterton’s test of a society.

"An honest man falls in love with an honest woman. He wishes, therefore, to marry her, to be the father of her children, to secure her and himself. All systems of government should be tested by whether he can do this.

If any system, feudal, servile, or barbaric, does in fact give him enough land, work, or security that he can do it, there is the essence of liberty and justice.

If any system, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green, Reform, or technocratic, does in fact give him wages so low and conditions so insecure that he cannot do it, there is the essence of tyranny and shame."

If the state could stop turning people into dependents that working people have to pay for, that would be great. The state is bloated, fixated on wealth redistribution rather than wealth creation, and actively working against the people it is meant to represent. It is incapable of creating the conditions for wealth, stability, and independence. This is managed decline, and we need some adults in the room who have read a book. AIBU?

Saying poverty is the default starting state shows a complete lack of awareness about generational wealth, parents being able to help their adult children with deposits in order to not be stuck with high rents that leave them unable to save etc. Your arguments sound like those a privileged sixth former with a very limited awareness of the real world, and little interaction with people outside of their own social bubble, would make.

If net wealth makes more better people to vote, does this mean Johnson, Farage and Rees Mogg are the voice of the people? 🙄

Money is just a representation of value and time isn't it. I don't care so much about the £ just using it as a heuristic to make the argument that people need to contribute and earn, and those who aren't capable of that need looking after and are dependents. Instead, we have a broken system where people who aren't working can be better off than those that are.

Nigel Farage for example is probably a net taxpayer on paper. But if you include the damage he's done to the UK economy, not so much.

There’s a case for only those who pay tax having a say in who raises tax, but it’s still not morally right.

No - there is no case for this. If the only people who had a say in how taxes were to be raised and by how much were "the taxpayers" then they would just vote to reduce taxes for themselves, and cut all of the benefits and subsidies that taxes pay for.

This is essentially what all right-wing governments and parties propose, including the Conservatives and Reform.

It is also the situation in the USA, where those who have money can enjoy a good standard of private education and private healthcare - and everyone else can make do with second class services often delivered under third world conditions.

Poverty is the default starting state. If you have a parent who has worked hard to provide something for you is a good example of how people can set their children up for success. Should we redistribute that wealth to give to families that didn't make that effort? Can you hear yourself?

A lot of it is about luck though.

I was lucky enough to be born into a loving, stable and supportive family who got me off to a good start in life. I was lucky enough to have a family that prioritised education and encouraged me to learn. I was lucky enough to go to an excellent school. I was lucky enough to be born with a high IQ that enabled me to do very well in academia and subsequently in my career. I was lucky enough to have opportunities when I was growing up to develop the soft skills that have helped me to succeed in the workplace. I have been lucky enough to have had good health throughout my life and not to have had my opportunities limited by disability. I have been lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time for multiple jobs. I have been lucky enough that my nearest and dearest have been in good enough health that I haven't had to give up work in order to care for them. Etc etc.

Yes, I've worked hard, but it would be a lie to say that I haven't also been incredibly fortunate.

But you're OK with people voting to have more other people's money? That they didn't earn?

There is no luck in a family through the generations. It's an endless amount of work, love, toil, hardship that each generation has endured to give better to the next. What on earth are you talking about? It's not 'luck' it's real people you're related to that did that for you.

This - OP you really haven't thought this through. At least I hope you haven't done, because if you have, and have still come to this conclusion, that's a worry.
Do you live in a bubble?
Edited to make it clear I am addressing the OP.

So apparently you’ve never encountered the radical concept that some people have physical disabilities so severe that their earning potential will never outweigh their “cost” to the NHS. That doesn’t make them lazy, cognitively impaired, or morally deficient

Think about this properly. Someone can earn minimum wage for decades while living with a lifelong physical condition that costs the NHS millions over their lifetime. By your logic, should they lose the vote too, despite working, paying tax, and contributing every single day? After all, they’ll be ‘taking’ far more than they give financially.

We're just having a chat on the internet. It's pretty low stakes. I'm relaxed about it, if I get stuff wrong I can forgive myself.

But from an individual perspective being born to the right parents is a huge chunk of luck. That the individual benefits from.

They can't work remotely? If it's that bad then they're definitely dependent on society to get along aren't they?

The suggestion is unworkable.
A better idea would be to raise the voting age back to 21.
As an aside, I can’t believe Labour and the SNP want to give voting rights to children!

Maybe. But their medical costs will outweigh their taxes.

It's got nothing to do with luck. You're DNA isn't a role of the dice. It's been passed down to you through countless generations. You're not playing a computer game, you're made of the genes and memes of your parents with a little RNG perhaps in your own makeup.

Yes, likely but if they're very smart they'll perhaps overcome that and gain the right to vote.

OK, that's our fallback position then if this thread goes awry!

Absolutely because they're more naive and likely to buy into the crap that the state promotes through it's propaganda arms in school.

Eh? You seem to think I’ve made a point that I absolutely haven’t. If you read my post properly you’ll see that.

I hope that I can help my kids get a leg up eventually by gifting them some money. I don’t think that anyone having a headstart in adult life due to generational wealth means they are more deserving of a vote than someone else who had no financial support from their parents and is therefore more likely to at points benefit from more state support.

They'd all the right to vote at 18. Everyone. Then it's based on contributions.

Polling is against you and your distinguished social commentary, OP 😉.

Oh, good. Perhaps, then, those in vital, but notoriously underpaid roles could be paid enough to be net contributors then?

I'm sure when you need someone to wipe your arse for you, you'll be happy to pay them enough to put them in the 'voting class'?

Millions of people in this country work full time without warning enough to vote under your system. So that would be millions whose work is necessary for the country to function would be without the most basic democratic right. How on earth does that sit right with you?

I'm guessing you don't like it when people earning below your tax threshold strike for more pay. Fine, tell you what, you want to pay less taxes, put your own bins out, educate your own children, and don't except anyone to care for you in your old age. Because none of those people who do those jobs earn enough to be net contributors.

And if I can't vote, if my only value is in the money I earn, not the job I actually do, then I'll take my skills and time elsewhere and you can look after the children with severe special needs I care for. OK? Good.

That's that sorted out, then.

What do you think will happen if the wealth of a country continues to be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people?

History provides enough clues. Eventually the peasents revolt, sick of the sight of people with more money than they know what to do with, with more food than they can ever eat, with multiple houses while millions live in slums. One of the few European countries where this hasn't happened yet is the UK, where the right-wing politicians and their paymasters spend time and money trying to convince the public that they are the natural leaders, that only they should be allowed to make major decisons, that only they are worthy of representation in Parliament, and where any challenges to their hegemony are deflected.

360 or so Conservative MPs (and one unelected gobshite) caused far more damage to the UK in the last 14 years, damage that will take decades to rectify, than a few thousand people in rubber boats will ever do. It beggars belief that some of the worst culprits are now putting themselves forward as the saviours. Does anyone really think that the millionaires Tice, Farage, Zahawi, Candy and Musk really care about the issues facing the ordinary voter in the UK?