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?

So why have you proposed a system that isn't meritocratic? Wealth generators do not intrinsically have more 'merit', and I explained why that is the case.

In the past, I've worked for people who fit your original 'net contributor' metric. If it was up to them, they'd vote for every policy that ensured they didn't have to provide any basic health and safety and should only pay the barest minimum of wages. In fact, I worked for some of these pre- minimum wage and I can tell you now, none of them would have voted for a minimum wage.

Many of the employment rights we have today we wouldn't have if only the 'wealth generators' had a say. How is the owner of a nursing home who cuts corners and pays staff as little as possible to gain the wealth which makes them a 'net contributor' of more merit than the minimum wage whistleblower who stood up to their practices? Yet under the system you propound, the supposed 'meritocratic' one, the owner would have a vote because apparently they are 'better qualified'.

A meritocracy is not a bad idea, your mistake is your quantification of 'merit'. Lots of absolute amoral shysters earn a lot of money.

Not according to your heuristic

But 'net contributors' are the main reason for the existence of cheap, imported labour. THEY don't want to pay decent wages. You only have to listen to Net contributor Touker Suleyman to hear why so much of our production is exported from China. Wages wouldn't increase. The increase in wages as determined by the introduction of the minimum wage is the reason why 'wealth generators' shoved production overseas.

If we all agreed to go back to earning a pittance in sweatshops, production would move back here. Net contributors aren't interested in the massed workforce getting decent pay. It eats into their own profits.

Like the White Queen, I am capable of believing six impossible things before breakfast. However, by this time of the evening my credulity is all spent for the day so I am afraid it can't stretch far enough to take you seriously!
Once again, your commitment to maintaining this grotesque comic character is admirable. Dozens of posts on and you still haven't broken keyfabe, anyone would believe you are genuinely making these unhinged suggestions in earnest, rather than the elaborate satire it is. I sincerely hope I am right, as I said the idea that you might be for real makes me shudder!
In the vanishingly unlikely event that your representation of yourself and your circumstances is anything approaching the truth, it would surprise me that such a high worth individual would be frittering their valuable time away annoying people on MN, wouldn't someone as busy and important as you pay someone to make a nuisance of themselves on the internet on your behalf?
Also, top tip for starting future troll posts, you could have cut out most of the waffle and just said that you favoured replacing democracy with plutocracy, which entirely and succinctly sums up your farcical suggestion and would have had a similar impact to your more long-winded OP. Though, as I said previously, your OP is already a pitch perfect satire of the kind of drivel that a certain type of person, who I assume you are parodying, would spout on the internet in order to make themselves look more intelligent than they actually are. Just wanted to give you some ideas for your possible future efforts in internet irritation.

I posted this for fun and didn't expect to blow up as much as it had. What governance changes would you make? Keep it high level.

My tax code is 0T.

I like your ideas and the Alice in Wonderland reference. 10/10.

We're sitting at 80% / 20% so I guess the pareto principles is holding water here.

Total votes 587.

Well, since you ask, I'd probably go in the opposite direction. I think those of us who have and do work in the care sector and education sector have had rather enough of 'net contributors' with no knowledge or understanding being so influential in the national curriculum and standards of care.

I am not interested in what Lord Haw Haw whose children are privately educated thinks about what the state system needs. He has no idea. I am interested in what the users of the service - the children and their parents - think we need. I don't care how much the parents earn, the are in a much better position of knowledge than some 'net contributors' who has never been in the system and whose kids won't be.

I'd have more of the people who work in the industry at grass roots level having MORE voice, not less. 'Net contributors' who have NO CLUE about the challenges of state education shouldn't be discussing it, much less be the only ones who can vote for policies pertaining to it.

Of course it's low stakes. I seriously doubt that there are any senior SpADs lurking for ideas.

But I do think that there is room to explore a representational system that acknowledges effort and work. I award everyone one vote, at 18, to stick to the status quo. But when you might finish your degree, you'd earn another for being better educated. Complete professional training and the final exams would entitle a nurse, teacher, doctor or accountant to a third vote; this might encourage employers to buck up their ideas about staff training, which would be a plus. Marriage or property purchase could be another vote. None of this limits an ordinary person's aspirations via wealth or privilege, because they are all steps any sensible society wants its citizens to aspire to fulfil individually. It think it would be important to say there's not a ladder of completing the steps. Some of these votes would be parallel, so you might get 1-2-4-6. or 1-3-5-6.

None of them are purchasable.

One would be a period of civic/public/military service, which might parallel further or degree education, awarded for years of service. I haven't thought it through closely enough to explain any details, and I also think you have to plan in an entrepreneurial route.

So on election you hand your paperwork to the clerk and you get handed the appropriate number of papers. You can split your vote across parties, or cast them all for the same party. The vote count might be a nightmare however.

So going back to when only the gentry got a say in the running of the country?
sounds horrific!

Do you want the workhouses back too?

Just so I’m clear - the majority or nurses and teachers are not net contributors. So you don’t think they should vote either?

Chesterton is being misapplied here. His test was whether a system lets ordinary people live securely through honest work and build stable lives. If that isn’t happening for lots of people, Chesterton’s point is that the system has failed, not that those people should lose their vote.
Using him to argue for restricting political voice is the opposite of what he was saying.

Talking about taking away the right to vote for disabled people and those who care for them isn't ''fun'' when you have a disabled child.

I see. It's funny now is it?

The lame excuse of the sexist and racist.

What do you think they need?

Better to exchange ideas and talk about them. Isn't that why we're here? You can change my mind.

I like this very much.

No idea how this relates to what I wrote. Of course I would want to be operated on by a fully trained surgeon, one who pays his taxes and has the right to vote, so how does this answer my question, which to remind you was to explain how not having the vote improves outcomes for the disenfranchised.

If some people genuinely believe that disabled people and/or their families should have less rights through no fault of their own then they are past saving.

and perhaps keep in mind that everyone is an accident or illness away from disability.

Enough staff to adequately address needs. Permanent staff who aren't exhausted because there aren't enough staff.
Standardised systems so you don't have one school using ReadWriteInc and another using something else.
Proper facilities for SEN instead of dumping them in the classroom and crossing fingers.
But mostly, I just want to be listened to. As a non-net contributor who does the job, I want a say in how it should be done from a point of knowledge which those who don't do the job frankly don't have.

I’m a foster carer for our local authority to 3 children, 2 with complex disabilities. As a foster carer I don’t earn enough to pay tax. I’m not eligible for any benefits as my husband works full time.
By your reasoning I shouldn’t be allowed to vote as I’m not paying taxes? What about the amount the local authority are saving by paying me less than £1 an hour to care 24 hours a day 7 days a week for children/young adults with complex disabilities who will never be able to live independently, require all their personal care needs met, tube fed and medication through the night.
what about parents of disabled children who can’t work because of caring commitments do you think they aren’t contributing to society?

So I still don't get any say in the industry I work in? Oh, good. Somebody with an unrelated degree gets to vote for a government with education being the forefront and I get no say in it because I don't meet rather daft criteria.

If you needed an operation @SweetcornFritter , you'd see a surgeon. I'm not willing to cut bits out of you!

I don't think harping on about the rights of the disabled is very helpful. Almost all of us acknowledge that their protection and dignity is essential to considering ourselves a civilised society. But if you asked me whose opinions I would rate more valuable between an orthopaedic surgeon and an activist quadraplegic, I would struggle to calculate the relative values.

Does your vote in the current system give you that?

Pull the other one.