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?

Are you very young? I’m struggling to understand why you’re finding it so hard to understand that some people will be financially ‘dependent’ on the state due to disability even if they have a well paid job, as some conditions cost millions across a lifetime far more than someone on even a six figure wage can contribute to tax in their working life.

A simple question for you. Should someone who has always worked hard, in well paid jobs (let’s say they have sorted remote ones) paying higher level taxes consistently, be permitted to vote if their disability costs the NHS more than they have paid in tax?

Lord save us from the social Darwinists 🙏 Are you an aristocrat OP? Because if not, you're talking a whole lot of game for someone who inherited lowly serf genetics.

There are many excellent responses on this thread, providing well-reasoned and expressed rebuttles to the OP's ludicrous suggestions. However, I feel engaging with this OP in good faith is probably, sadly, a waste of time since this is very clearly a provocative post designed to elicit the response it has and, by continuing to engage with this OP we are giving them the attention they crave.
You are a cheeky little scamp OP, but I must give credit where credit is due as you are far more diligent than most of the wind-up merchants who hang about this site.
Many of your fellow agent provocateurs are satisfied with depositing their stinky opinions and leaving them to fester, never returning to their dung heaps to respond to commenters. You, however, have really committed to your role and have stuck around pretending to defend your absurd suggestions. Either you are more committed to maintaining and developping the clueless comic character you have created here or you are just unusually time rich. Either way, your efforts are impressive.
Dressing your very silly suggestions up with a venere of philosophical and academic credibility through the use of verbiage is also a beautiful stylistic touch, I must say. It is exactly the sort of thing a foolish person would do to give their nonsense some added gravitas. It really makes your satirical post almost believable. It is a good job I am sure this cannot be for real because if someone had posted this as a genuine thought then they really would appear embarrassingly stupid!

I fully understand some people will be disabled and not get to vote in the scenario. And it'll be for the betterment of all that only those who can contribute vote.

Yes, is a high earner becomes net negative they don't get to vote. The same as you lose your driving license if you're unable to drive.

I'm wishing you beautiful abundance in 2026.

Of course it's luck.

Yes, my parents worked hard to give me the best possible start in life, and I'm sure that their parents and grandparents worked very hard before that, but as a child being born into that family, I did nothing to earn that lucky start in life. It was purely an accident of birth.

A baby born into a very different family with far fewer privileges and/or a significant disability would have been no less deserving than I was.

You can kid yourself all you like that it isn't luck if you like, but you'd be wrong.

Since election turnout averages between about 30-60% of the UK population, i can't see that these threats would bother most people tbh

I think you should be paid well.

19% believe the OP is not being unreasonable. That’s worrying. I mean I can see the point of goady or wind-up posting, sort of, but voting not so much.
The OP’s arguments would be embarrassing in a court form debate.

It isn't luck. You could no more of been born into my family as you could Denzel Washington. There is no alternative universe where you have different parents. You are made up of a genetic code that's been continued through your family since people first became people. Stop drinking the markist kool aid. We are not lego bricks. You cannot just replace people and swap them out thinking it's all the same.

Depends what you mean by “value”

Someone in this model could give full time hours of volunteer work and not earn representation. They could, in theory, provide free childcare to enable parents to work and earn the vote, while not earning it themselves because they don’t pay income tax.

A person could donate their time and expertise to provide free healthcare, keeping the workforce healthy and generating wealth, but not have the right to representation.

Working for the greater good is valuable to society unless you only judge “value” to be money in vs money out?

We don't have to. You've previously stated it.

Nothing is free. It is free at the point of access. We all pay for it before or after we use it.

You could do anything you like but does someone else think it's valuable enough to pay you for it?

Agreed.

No, your sex.

Could be fluid.

I think it’s more valuable than anything else. But people can’t afford to pay volunteers.

And in your world, volunteers would be everything.

What net benefit is there for the high earning, hard working, disabled person in this scenario not having the vote?

The NHS has ‘lost’ the money that funds their treatment either way. What benefit is there for the greater good / “betterment of all” if they don’t have a vote?

A much better system would be if people could buy votes. Say £1,000 a vote. If you can't afford a vote then you don't get a say in how other peoples hard earned taxed money is spent.

Obviously if you have worked hard and invested wisely you can buy more votes. As should be your right as a more worthwhile member of society.

It's not only that, it is that those jobs are not valued. Women mostly bear the caring burden and that burden allows the rest of the country to work. We need to re-evaluate what we think are worthwhile inputs.

That means 79% don't agree so far.

You're talking crap now. On an individual level, your genetic and familial inheritance is pure luck and nothing else. You did absolutely fuck all to "earn" your genes or the family background into which you were born, and whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you were no more deserving than a child who was born into a very different family.

But your arguments are becoming increasingly sinister now. I suspect that you're being deliberately offense because you're enjoying winding people up - at least, I sincerely hope that that's the case and that you're not actually as morally bankrupt as you appear to be. Either way, I pity you.

That's just as bad as OP's system.

So money is the only measure of someone's worth? Nothing else is of value?
I think a bloody revolution would be preferable.