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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

958 replies

SBGM247 · 12/01/2026 13:21

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?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
11
OP posts:
TheCompactPussycat · 15/01/2026 11:40

SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 11:21

Such nihilism @TheCompactPussycat , this appeal to “luck”. Love, loyalty, and obligation come before abstract ideas of justice. Calling inheritance “luck” is pure cope, a way of avoiding the biological reality of financial, genetic, and emotional inheritance, and the obligations that flow from it, whether to pass it on or not to (in the case of negative patterns). It’s used to shift responsibility and duty away from families and towards the state. That’s the real argument being made. There's an element of luck in all lives but it isn't luck who your parents are, nor the family of origin. Those are the results of decisions of a group, by people bound together.

The idea that birth is “luck” only works if children are interchangeable units. In reality, they’re the biological and cultural continuation of countless generations. The biological reality is simple. Children receive what their parents can provide because that is how families work. The idea that the family we’re born into, our talents and our parents are merely a matter of luck collapses under even basic scrutiny. A child born into a stable, educated, disciplined family is not the beneficiary of chance, but of accumulated choices and pressures stretching back decades or centuries in a generational struggle for survival and meaning. The child deserves it in the same way the parent deserves it, because it’s a torch passed on, a duty and an obligation.

You could no more swap them at birth than an IKEA manual could produce an 18th century Chippendale cabinet. The word “luck” is being used to make a moral argument that children don’t deserve what their parents give them. Parents have every right to invest in their children and to decide that their children deserve it. That does not give anyone else the right to redistribute it or write it off. If, like me, you didn’t have parents who could do that, then yes, that’s hard luck in the sense you should get over it and get on with it. But it doesn’t create a moral claim over the investments other parents make in their children’s education and upbringing.

If you want to operate in reality rather than a beautiful lie, you need to accept that outcomes are unequal and often shaped by circumstance. Treating outcomes as unjust leads to central planning, which requires coercion and destroys freedom and responsibility.

As Roger Scruton put it, calling it “luck” turns gratitude into resentment, obligation into entitlement, and families into obstacles to fairness. That framing invites the state to step in, and that is cruel to children and cruel to people, because it teaches them that nothing is owed, nothing is earned, and nothing really means anything.

The argument reminds me of the ending of Withnail and I. It’s all luck, right? Nothing means anything, right?

“I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

So to wrap up this rant. Wealth and debt are generational. Individual choices and external events clearly matter, but starting points are heavily shaped by what is passed down, assets and liabilities included. Each generation has a duty to do better, give better, and leave something stronger behind.

The “luck” argument is a dead-end. It's nihilism and cope dressed up as fairness by intellectuals driven by a will to power over the state, who consistently appeal to those on the fringes, not to solve their problems, but to legitimise intervention on their behalf.

So far the poll on this post...
->180 votes from people who understand that.
-> 634 votes from people who think the state is coming to save them.

Edited
Show quote history

That's a rather verbose post simply to say "I'm using a different definition of the word 'luck' than the one you are."

NorthXNorthWest · 15/01/2026 11:46

SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 11:21

Such nihilism @TheCompactPussycat , this appeal to “luck”. Love, loyalty, and obligation come before abstract ideas of justice. Calling inheritance “luck” is pure cope, a way of avoiding the biological reality of financial, genetic, and emotional inheritance, and the obligations that flow from it, whether to pass it on or not to (in the case of negative patterns). It’s used to shift responsibility and duty away from families and towards the state. That’s the real argument being made. There's an element of luck in all lives but it isn't luck who your parents are, nor the family of origin. Those are the results of decisions of a group, by people bound together.

The idea that birth is “luck” only works if children are interchangeable units. In reality, they’re the biological and cultural continuation of countless generations. The biological reality is simple. Children receive what their parents can provide because that is how families work. The idea that the family we’re born into, our talents and our parents are merely a matter of luck collapses under even basic scrutiny. A child born into a stable, educated, disciplined family is not the beneficiary of chance, but of accumulated choices and pressures stretching back decades or centuries in a generational struggle for survival and meaning. The child deserves it in the same way the parent deserves it, because it’s a torch passed on, a duty and an obligation.

You could no more swap them at birth than an IKEA manual could produce an 18th century Chippendale cabinet. The word “luck” is being used to make a moral argument that children don’t deserve what their parents give them. Parents have every right to invest in their children and to decide that their children deserve it. That does not give anyone else the right to redistribute it or write it off. If, like me, you didn’t have parents who could do that, then yes, that’s hard luck in the sense you should get over it and get on with it. But it doesn’t create a moral claim over the investments other parents make in their children’s education and upbringing.

If you want to operate in reality rather than a beautiful lie, you need to accept that outcomes are unequal and often shaped by circumstance. Treating outcomes as unjust leads to central planning, which requires coercion and destroys freedom and responsibility.

As Roger Scruton put it, calling it “luck” turns gratitude into resentment, obligation into entitlement, and families into obstacles to fairness. That framing invites the state to step in, and that is cruel to children and cruel to people, because it teaches them that nothing is owed, nothing is earned, and nothing really means anything.

The argument reminds me of the ending of Withnail and I. It’s all luck, right? Nothing means anything, right?

“I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

So to wrap up this rant. Wealth and debt are generational. Individual choices and external events clearly matter, but starting points are heavily shaped by what is passed down, assets and liabilities included. Each generation has a duty to do better, give better, and leave something stronger behind.

The “luck” argument is a dead-end. It's nihilism and cope dressed up as fairness by intellectuals driven by a will to power over the state, who consistently appeal to those on the fringes, not to solve their problems, but to legitimise intervention on their behalf.

So far the poll on this post...
->180 votes from people who understand that.
-> 634 votes from people who think the state is coming to save them.

Edited
Show quote history

I detest how ‘luck’ is used to devalue hard earned financial stability or success, yet somehow it’s never considered ‘luck’ to live in a country with a welfare state.

Mithral · 15/01/2026 11:49

NorthXNorthWest · 15/01/2026 11:46

I detest how ‘luck’ is used to devalue hard earned financial stability or success, yet somehow it’s never considered ‘luck’ to live in a country with a welfare state.

Show quote history

Where you are born is definitely considered luck! Of course someone with a profound disability (for example) is lucky if they are born somewhere with a good medical system and some state support for people unable to work. My cousin has a rare genetic disorder and is now in his early 50s and would never have survived his infancy in many countries. Why wouldn't this be luck - are you suggesting some sort of karma style thing where he deserved to be born here?

ThingsAreNotWhatTheyWere · 15/01/2026 11:59

Mithral · 15/01/2026 11:49

Where you are born is definitely considered luck! Of course someone with a profound disability (for example) is lucky if they are born somewhere with a good medical system and some state support for people unable to work. My cousin has a rare genetic disorder and is now in his early 50s and would never have survived his infancy in many countries. Why wouldn't this be luck - are you suggesting some sort of karma style thing where he deserved to be born here?

Show quote history

Agreed. Both can be true at the same time - you make your luck to some extent by hard work, good choices etc., but whether you are born with or develop disabilities is down to chance.

TealScroller · 15/01/2026 12:10

This is a pretty vile viewpoint. Any citizen of this country has and absolutely should have the right to vote, anything other than this is morally wrong.

Original poster
SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 12:15

TheCompactPussycat · 15/01/2026 11:40

That's a rather verbose post simply to say "I'm using a different definition of the word 'luck' than the one you are."

Show quote history

TLDR words have actual meanings. If everything is reduced to “luck”, it’s not surprising that nihilism extends to language as well. Redefining words has been a well known and deliberate tactic in communist movements, particularly in Marxist Leninist traditions. If you treat definitions as arbitrary, there’s nothing left to learn and no way to fail, which conveniently supports wealth redistribution and state intervention if that's what you want.

OP posts:
TheCompactPussycat · 15/01/2026 12:16

SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 12:15

TLDR words have actual meanings. If everything is reduced to “luck”, it’s not surprising that nihilism extends to language as well. Redefining words has been a well known and deliberate tactic in communist movements, particularly in Marxist Leninist traditions. If you treat definitions as arbitrary, there’s nothing left to learn and no way to fail, which conveniently supports wealth redistribution and state intervention if that's what you want.

Edited
Show quote history

Too right they do. You are using luck when you mean chance. HTH

Original poster
SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 12:18

It's not chance as explained. Thanks for playing though @TheCompactPussycat.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5474577-aibu-to-think-if-youre-a-net-negative-in-tax-you-shouldnt-be-able-to-vote?reply=149875965&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

OP posts:
Original poster
SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 12:24

TealScroller · 15/01/2026 12:10

This is a pretty vile viewpoint. Any citizen of this country has and absolutely should have the right to vote, anything other than this is morally wrong.

If you're a fan of kabuki theatre then sure @TealScroller!

It's like, this governance system is the only governance system out of all governance systems that we can have, and if we discuss changing it then we're bad people because it's a moral imperative we don't change it. No matter what. Regardless of if the state is captured and weaponizes new citizenship to it's own end.

Amazing! 10/10. Would roast again.

OP posts:
BadlyFittedJackets · 15/01/2026 12:58

In some countries it is mandatory to vote

CalishataFolkart · 15/01/2026 14:41

Theoretically, in the event that two babies are switched at birth between poor parents and rich ones, how does “luck” play a part? Which baby “deserves” the generational wealth and which one “deserves” the hardship, poverty and potentially never being able to earn the vote?

ObelixtheGaul · 15/01/2026 14:50

SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 11:21

Such nihilism @TheCompactPussycat , this appeal to “luck”. Love, loyalty, and obligation come before abstract ideas of justice. Calling inheritance “luck” is pure cope, a way of avoiding the biological reality of financial, genetic, and emotional inheritance, and the obligations that flow from it, whether to pass it on or not to (in the case of negative patterns). It’s used to shift responsibility and duty away from families and towards the state. That’s the real argument being made. There's an element of luck in all lives but it isn't luck who your parents are, nor the family of origin. Those are the results of decisions of a group, by people bound together.

The idea that birth is “luck” only works if children are interchangeable units. In reality, they’re the biological and cultural continuation of countless generations. The biological reality is simple. Children receive what their parents can provide because that is how families work. The idea that the family we’re born into, our talents and our parents are merely a matter of luck collapses under even basic scrutiny. A child born into a stable, educated, disciplined family is not the beneficiary of chance, but of accumulated choices and pressures stretching back decades or centuries in a generational struggle for survival and meaning. The child deserves it in the same way the parent deserves it, because it’s a torch passed on, a duty and an obligation.

You could no more swap them at birth than an IKEA manual could produce an 18th century Chippendale cabinet. The word “luck” is being used to make a moral argument that children don’t deserve what their parents give them. Parents have every right to invest in their children and to decide that their children deserve it. That does not give anyone else the right to redistribute it or write it off. If, like me, you didn’t have parents who could do that, then yes, that’s hard luck in the sense you should get over it and get on with it. But it doesn’t create a moral claim over the investments other parents make in their children’s education and upbringing.

If you want to operate in reality rather than a beautiful lie, you need to accept that outcomes are unequal and often shaped by circumstance. Treating outcomes as unjust leads to central planning, which requires coercion and destroys freedom and responsibility.

As Roger Scruton put it, calling it “luck” turns gratitude into resentment, obligation into entitlement, and families into obstacles to fairness. That framing invites the state to step in, and that is cruel to children and cruel to people, because it teaches them that nothing is owed, nothing is earned, and nothing really means anything.

The argument reminds me of the ending of Withnail and I. It’s all luck, right? Nothing means anything, right?

“I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

So to wrap up this rant. Wealth and debt are generational. Individual choices and external events clearly matter, but starting points are heavily shaped by what is passed down, assets and liabilities included. Each generation has a duty to do better, give better, and leave something stronger behind.

The “luck” argument is a dead-end. It's nihilism and cope dressed up as fairness by intellectuals driven by a will to power over the state, who consistently appeal to those on the fringes, not to solve their problems, but to legitimise intervention on their behalf.

So far the poll on this post...
->180 votes from people who understand that.
-> 634 votes from people who think the state is coming to save them.

Edited
Show quote history

Across a span of generations, you have a point. However, an individual who receives a substantial amount through inheritance of monies they, personally, have done absolutely nothing to earn is, indeed, 'lucky', in the sense that all they had to do to get that was to be born.

Let's look at this another way: it doesn't matter how hard you or I work, we will never become the King or Queen of England. Over generations, no, that isn't entirely luck/chance, but King Charles did not actually have to do anything to gain that title on a personal level. He doesn't even have to be good at it for him to retain it. Of course, 'luck' slightly depends on your perspective, here, it's not a job I would want, but then again, he could abdicate and still retain the financial benefits, as Edward VIII did. It's not like he'll end up working in Tesco's, is it?

What you have, effectively described, is the crab bucket of the class system in this country. Generations of people might have made their own wealth over a lengthy period of time, but also generations were actively prevented from making their own wealth, by ensuring certain professions were only accessible to those who already had the means. Not because they had worked hard, proved their mettle, etc, but because Daddy and Granddaddy did. The son who is as thick as two short ones gets into Eton because Daddy went there and Daddy can pay. You and I would have to be a damn sight brighter and work a damn sight harder to be in with a chance of one of a handful of scholarships.

So, it stands to reason that you and I start at a disadvantage that is not of our own making as individuals, yes? That's where the 'luck' comes in. Today, that matters a lot less, and the reason it matters a lot less is precisely as a result of things you might not entirely like, things your taxes pay for.

Grammarnut · 15/01/2026 15:01

SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 11:21

Such nihilism @TheCompactPussycat , this appeal to “luck”. Love, loyalty, and obligation come before abstract ideas of justice. Calling inheritance “luck” is pure cope, a way of avoiding the biological reality of financial, genetic, and emotional inheritance, and the obligations that flow from it, whether to pass it on or not to (in the case of negative patterns). It’s used to shift responsibility and duty away from families and towards the state. That’s the real argument being made. There's an element of luck in all lives but it isn't luck who your parents are, nor the family of origin. Those are the results of decisions of a group, by people bound together.

The idea that birth is “luck” only works if children are interchangeable units. In reality, they’re the biological and cultural continuation of countless generations. The biological reality is simple. Children receive what their parents can provide because that is how families work. The idea that the family we’re born into, our talents and our parents are merely a matter of luck collapses under even basic scrutiny. A child born into a stable, educated, disciplined family is not the beneficiary of chance, but of accumulated choices and pressures stretching back decades or centuries in a generational struggle for survival and meaning. The child deserves it in the same way the parent deserves it, because it’s a torch passed on, a duty and an obligation.

You could no more swap them at birth than an IKEA manual could produce an 18th century Chippendale cabinet. The word “luck” is being used to make a moral argument that children don’t deserve what their parents give them. Parents have every right to invest in their children and to decide that their children deserve it. That does not give anyone else the right to redistribute it or write it off. If, like me, you didn’t have parents who could do that, then yes, that’s hard luck in the sense you should get over it and get on with it. But it doesn’t create a moral claim over the investments other parents make in their children’s education and upbringing.

If you want to operate in reality rather than a beautiful lie, you need to accept that outcomes are unequal and often shaped by circumstance. Treating outcomes as unjust leads to central planning, which requires coercion and destroys freedom and responsibility.

As Roger Scruton put it, calling it “luck” turns gratitude into resentment, obligation into entitlement, and families into obstacles to fairness. That framing invites the state to step in, and that is cruel to children and cruel to people, because it teaches them that nothing is owed, nothing is earned, and nothing really means anything.

The argument reminds me of the ending of Withnail and I. It’s all luck, right? Nothing means anything, right?

“I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

So to wrap up this rant. Wealth and debt are generational. Individual choices and external events clearly matter, but starting points are heavily shaped by what is passed down, assets and liabilities included. Each generation has a duty to do better, give better, and leave something stronger behind.

The “luck” argument is a dead-end. It's nihilism and cope dressed up as fairness by intellectuals driven by a will to power over the state, who consistently appeal to those on the fringes, not to solve their problems, but to legitimise intervention on their behalf.

So far the poll on this post...
->180 votes from people who understand that.
-> 634 votes from people who think the state is coming to save them.

Edited
Show quote history

I agree with you , oddly enough about inheritance. What people call 'luck' is the result of many decisions that are not 'luck' in the sense of random chance. If you join the tennis club and go to Durham or St Andrew's universities the possibe partners you will meet will be different from those you have a choice from at the local FE college or at a pub which is a 'bit of a dive'. That is not luck, that is judgement, which mostly comes from parental input over generations and will continue to the next generation.
But you point children towards the mind-frame where they go to Durham and the tennis club by choice. It's called education and requires that we stop saying that all family arrangements and all cultures are equally good, when that is demonstrably not the case.
Give aspiration to the working classes, teach them Latin and the classics, real history including economic and social history, give them books not screens. Not all will respond - just as some of those who are born into families that naturally join the tennis club and go to Durham et al don't always follow the family path - but enough will to change family patterns for happier ones. That's not luck either, and it is to the dishonour of some of our education unions that they praise 'relevance' (Shakespeare and Latin are not relevant to working class children apparently) and not making children uncomfortable over giving them a chance to bloom.
You've quoted Hamlet. You say that your parents could not give you the investment that better off parents might have but you quoted Hamlet. Which means you have not only read or seen that play but studied it enough to remember the point of the lines. So someone, somewhere gave you the wherewithal of inspiration to move out of your milieu and into another where quoting Hamlet (and Roger Scruton) is natural to you. That was luck. And somewhere along the genetic line was the genetic make-up that led you to respond to that luck. Luck again.
I still don't agree with you about voting, though.

ObelixtheGaul · 15/01/2026 15:13

Grammarnut · 15/01/2026 15:01

I agree with you , oddly enough about inheritance. What people call 'luck' is the result of many decisions that are not 'luck' in the sense of random chance. If you join the tennis club and go to Durham or St Andrew's universities the possibe partners you will meet will be different from those you have a choice from at the local FE college or at a pub which is a 'bit of a dive'. That is not luck, that is judgement, which mostly comes from parental input over generations and will continue to the next generation.
But you point children towards the mind-frame where they go to Durham and the tennis club by choice. It's called education and requires that we stop saying that all family arrangements and all cultures are equally good, when that is demonstrably not the case.
Give aspiration to the working classes, teach them Latin and the classics, real history including economic and social history, give them books not screens. Not all will respond - just as some of those who are born into families that naturally join the tennis club and go to Durham et al don't always follow the family path - but enough will to change family patterns for happier ones. That's not luck either, and it is to the dishonour of some of our education unions that they praise 'relevance' (Shakespeare and Latin are not relevant to working class children apparently) and not making children uncomfortable over giving them a chance to bloom.
You've quoted Hamlet. You say that your parents could not give you the investment that better off parents might have but you quoted Hamlet. Which means you have not only read or seen that play but studied it enough to remember the point of the lines. So someone, somewhere gave you the wherewithal of inspiration to move out of your milieu and into another where quoting Hamlet (and Roger Scruton) is natural to you. That was luck. And somewhere along the genetic line was the genetic make-up that led you to respond to that luck. Luck again.
I still don't agree with you about voting, though.

Edited
Show quote history

It's not just luck, it's a social system that enables, nay, requires, every child to be educated to a certain level. And that can ONLY happen through a certain degree of 'welfare'. A certain degree of financial input from those who can afford it being used to level the playing field. Without it, OP wouldn't be quoting Hamlet if his parents didn't have the money to pay for me to learn to, at the very least, read. If he had to work, instead of receiving that education, to help put food on the table, Hamlet would have been a mild cigar he couldn't afford.

Original poster
SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 15:14

ObelixtheGaul · 15/01/2026 14:50

Across a span of generations, you have a point. However, an individual who receives a substantial amount through inheritance of monies they, personally, have done absolutely nothing to earn is, indeed, 'lucky', in the sense that all they had to do to get that was to be born.

Let's look at this another way: it doesn't matter how hard you or I work, we will never become the King or Queen of England. Over generations, no, that isn't entirely luck/chance, but King Charles did not actually have to do anything to gain that title on a personal level. He doesn't even have to be good at it for him to retain it. Of course, 'luck' slightly depends on your perspective, here, it's not a job I would want, but then again, he could abdicate and still retain the financial benefits, as Edward VIII did. It's not like he'll end up working in Tesco's, is it?

What you have, effectively described, is the crab bucket of the class system in this country. Generations of people might have made their own wealth over a lengthy period of time, but also generations were actively prevented from making their own wealth, by ensuring certain professions were only accessible to those who already had the means. Not because they had worked hard, proved their mettle, etc, but because Daddy and Granddaddy did. The son who is as thick as two short ones gets into Eton because Daddy went there and Daddy can pay. You and I would have to be a damn sight brighter and work a damn sight harder to be in with a chance of one of a handful of scholarships.

So, it stands to reason that you and I start at a disadvantage that is not of our own making as individuals, yes? That's where the 'luck' comes in. Today, that matters a lot less, and the reason it matters a lot less is precisely as a result of things you might not entirely like, things your taxes pay for.

Show quote history

Yes, I broadly agree with what you are saying. It feels self evident, and I do not think it undermines my original point.

Life is, in many ways, a gratitude test. Millions of sperm did not make it. Are we really going to mither about not being king, or about someone else earning more than us? Or do we take pride in ourselves and do the best we can with the cards we are dealt? You only need to open TikTok to see people in genuinely horrendous situations that make you question the world either through misfortune or bad decisions. And yet, you still have to meet life with enthusiasm and play the game, whatever the outcome. Outcome independence, oddly, tends to make you more successful when you also have real agency.

Another point I am trying to get at, less cleanly, is how much of this is internal. It is about the stories we tell ourselves. People reach for “they were lucky” as a shortcut, but what if that is not the full story? I have just started reading The School for Gods by Stefano D’Anna, and like Kapil Gupta, he seems fundamentally anti narrative about the self. The idea is that people confuse a fictional identity with who they actually are, when there is an observer, or dreamer, behind it all. Most people avoid looking at themselves that way.

My hunch is that this avoidance is why achievement is so often dismissed as luck. It is easier than paying the freight of self examination, drawing real boundaries, or deciding what meaning actually requires of you.

I may be drifting, but the broader point stands. People love excuses. A heuristic does not have to be true all the time to be useful. I am not saying luck does not exist. Of course it does. But it is more useful to recognise luck when we succeed, and to wish others well when they succeed, rather than rushing to disregard their achievements. That includes family background and generational lineage.

Looping back to the poll, the real question is whether one chooses to be a burden, or to take responsibility for the position they find themselves in.

And I think a vote is something you should earn (by w/e mechanism) and not automatically be afforded simply because you exist. Or, earlier in the thread afford more votes for achievements. Not all opinions are equal!

OP posts:
ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 15/01/2026 15:14

My dm grew up poor as a church mouse. Fortunately she never forced me to go to a hateful tennis club which l would have refused to do anyway.

I went to Manchester Poly. Loads of rich kids there. I met my ex Dh there. His dad was in the RAF and minted.

I live in a lovely area with an expensive house through my own hard work. Not from meeting Hoorahs a tennis club. Cant think of anything worse.

Papyrophile · 15/01/2026 15:16

Applause for @Grammarnut. Education is the answer. It was a great shame that Eton's project to develop a comprehensive sixth form for academically inclined students in the North East was turned down by the local authority in favour of continuing mediocrity.

Original poster
SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 15:18

Grammarnut · 15/01/2026 15:01

I agree with you , oddly enough about inheritance. What people call 'luck' is the result of many decisions that are not 'luck' in the sense of random chance. If you join the tennis club and go to Durham or St Andrew's universities the possibe partners you will meet will be different from those you have a choice from at the local FE college or at a pub which is a 'bit of a dive'. That is not luck, that is judgement, which mostly comes from parental input over generations and will continue to the next generation.
But you point children towards the mind-frame where they go to Durham and the tennis club by choice. It's called education and requires that we stop saying that all family arrangements and all cultures are equally good, when that is demonstrably not the case.
Give aspiration to the working classes, teach them Latin and the classics, real history including economic and social history, give them books not screens. Not all will respond - just as some of those who are born into families that naturally join the tennis club and go to Durham et al don't always follow the family path - but enough will to change family patterns for happier ones. That's not luck either, and it is to the dishonour of some of our education unions that they praise 'relevance' (Shakespeare and Latin are not relevant to working class children apparently) and not making children uncomfortable over giving them a chance to bloom.
You've quoted Hamlet. You say that your parents could not give you the investment that better off parents might have but you quoted Hamlet. Which means you have not only read or seen that play but studied it enough to remember the point of the lines. So someone, somewhere gave you the wherewithal of inspiration to move out of your milieu and into another where quoting Hamlet (and Roger Scruton) is natural to you. That was luck. And somewhere along the genetic line was the genetic make-up that led you to respond to that luck. Luck again.
I still don't agree with you about voting, though.

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Thank you @Grammarnut . Yes, I got shipped off to a boarding school because I won a bursary (you did an exam and it was based on merit) and so much of my values and my outlook turns out to not be very similar to my parents. So I wonder if that's what changed me. The reasons I went there were largely due to a dysfunctional family dynamic (hence my concerns about ending generational trauma and my estrangement from family which I briefly mentioned).

Maybe we won't agree about the voting, but what about earning more votes through achievements? I quite liked that.

OP posts:
Original poster
SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 15:19

ObelixtheGaul · 15/01/2026 15:13

It's not just luck, it's a social system that enables, nay, requires, every child to be educated to a certain level. And that can ONLY happen through a certain degree of 'welfare'. A certain degree of financial input from those who can afford it being used to level the playing field. Without it, OP wouldn't be quoting Hamlet if his parents didn't have the money to pay for me to learn to, at the very least, read. If he had to work, instead of receiving that education, to help put food on the table, Hamlet would have been a mild cigar he couldn't afford.

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We prob all agree a good standard of education and healthcare should be provided for those that can't afford. I've never suggested otherwise. And you're wrong about my parents, I answer this in the comment above.

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ExpectZeroContext · 15/01/2026 15:28

Good point. And if you are over 75 you shouldn't either as your cognitive capabilities are declining by that age.

Original poster
SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 15:29

CalishataFolkart · 15/01/2026 14:41

Theoretically, in the event that two babies are switched at birth between poor parents and rich ones, how does “luck” play a part? Which baby “deserves” the generational wealth and which one “deserves” the hardship, poverty and potentially never being able to earn the vote?

The baby that shared genetics belongs to those parents. And, I'd welcome developing that line of thinking further. Very often we see it's nature not nurture which is what "the sins of the father" is about. I think freewill plays a part but less so in instant decisions and more in discipline in preparing for being the person the moment needs. Or to put it differently, I think you can change outcomes and nature but not simply by dropping a cuckoo into the nest. So you'd see both babies being 'different' to the families they ended up in. Prob similar to kids who unknowingly have diff Fathers.

OP posts:
Grammarnut · 15/01/2026 15:32

ObelixtheGaul · 15/01/2026 14:50

Across a span of generations, you have a point. However, an individual who receives a substantial amount through inheritance of monies they, personally, have done absolutely nothing to earn is, indeed, 'lucky', in the sense that all they had to do to get that was to be born.

Let's look at this another way: it doesn't matter how hard you or I work, we will never become the King or Queen of England. Over generations, no, that isn't entirely luck/chance, but King Charles did not actually have to do anything to gain that title on a personal level. He doesn't even have to be good at it for him to retain it. Of course, 'luck' slightly depends on your perspective, here, it's not a job I would want, but then again, he could abdicate and still retain the financial benefits, as Edward VIII did. It's not like he'll end up working in Tesco's, is it?

What you have, effectively described, is the crab bucket of the class system in this country. Generations of people might have made their own wealth over a lengthy period of time, but also generations were actively prevented from making their own wealth, by ensuring certain professions were only accessible to those who already had the means. Not because they had worked hard, proved their mettle, etc, but because Daddy and Granddaddy did. The son who is as thick as two short ones gets into Eton because Daddy went there and Daddy can pay. You and I would have to be a damn sight brighter and work a damn sight harder to be in with a chance of one of a handful of scholarships.

So, it stands to reason that you and I start at a disadvantage that is not of our own making as individuals, yes? That's where the 'luck' comes in. Today, that matters a lot less, and the reason it matters a lot less is precisely as a result of things you might not entirely like, things your taxes pay for.

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Though I have agreed to some extent re luck with @SBGM247 they do indeed describe the crab bucket - but from the angle of not letting in people not already part of the 'in group'. However, despite living in a society almost entirely class driven it is possible to move up the classes (it could take up to 400 years to get from serf to knight in the Middle Ages, but it was possible) and many have done so (even though to a large extent we are still ruled by the lot who ran pre-Celtic Britain) and are accepted, or their children are.
The crab bucket also works another way, and I have described it in my answer to @SBGM247's screed. That is that some families actively discourage leaving the family comfort zone by preventing or denigrating education and 'getting on'. Well do I remember people of my generation saying certain things were not for the likes of them e.g. uni, A levels etc. thus telling their DC that those aspirations were off the menu. Others simply stopped their children getting an education full-stop (and this was very true of my generation where parents wanted children out at work asap so prevented the taking of GCEs or staying on at school, refused grammar school places etc).
When you are in the crab bucket one of the crabs escaping is an insult to the rest of you so you drag that crab back so it can't escape.
Some teachers actively promote this crab bucket mentality without intending to and with good intentions, by saying that curricula should be relevant to the children taught. So, no/very little: Shakespeare, properly explained history, no Latin, no experiences outside the local area or expectation. Teaching about classical music or art is also seen as denigrating the children's culture so it is not relevant either, or actively wrong to teach. By meaning to nurture they do not show that the small world of the children they teach is not the only possible world. That's the crab bucket, too, and a lot more difficult to get out of than professions going to the sons and daughters of those already in place - because if you manage to get out of the crab bucket you can enter those professions, or your children can. (And redistribution of wealth has helped this happen.)
Some immigrants make sure their children get out of the crab bucket through education. Other immigrants, of course, were in their country of origin of the class that aspires and though they may be poor in their new country they retain aspiration and their children move back up the social scale. Thus proving it's not luck, of course, but background.
But then, that's what the crab bucket is: background. A half-decent education can overcome the crab bucket. That is luck.

Original poster
SBGM247 · 15/01/2026 15:40

Grammarnut · 15/01/2026 15:32

Though I have agreed to some extent re luck with @SBGM247 they do indeed describe the crab bucket - but from the angle of not letting in people not already part of the 'in group'. However, despite living in a society almost entirely class driven it is possible to move up the classes (it could take up to 400 years to get from serf to knight in the Middle Ages, but it was possible) and many have done so (even though to a large extent we are still ruled by the lot who ran pre-Celtic Britain) and are accepted, or their children are.
The crab bucket also works another way, and I have described it in my answer to @SBGM247's screed. That is that some families actively discourage leaving the family comfort zone by preventing or denigrating education and 'getting on'. Well do I remember people of my generation saying certain things were not for the likes of them e.g. uni, A levels etc. thus telling their DC that those aspirations were off the menu. Others simply stopped their children getting an education full-stop (and this was very true of my generation where parents wanted children out at work asap so prevented the taking of GCEs or staying on at school, refused grammar school places etc).
When you are in the crab bucket one of the crabs escaping is an insult to the rest of you so you drag that crab back so it can't escape.
Some teachers actively promote this crab bucket mentality without intending to and with good intentions, by saying that curricula should be relevant to the children taught. So, no/very little: Shakespeare, properly explained history, no Latin, no experiences outside the local area or expectation. Teaching about classical music or art is also seen as denigrating the children's culture so it is not relevant either, or actively wrong to teach. By meaning to nurture they do not show that the small world of the children they teach is not the only possible world. That's the crab bucket, too, and a lot more difficult to get out of than professions going to the sons and daughters of those already in place - because if you manage to get out of the crab bucket you can enter those professions, or your children can. (And redistribution of wealth has helped this happen.)
Some immigrants make sure their children get out of the crab bucket through education. Other immigrants, of course, were in their country of origin of the class that aspires and though they may be poor in their new country they retain aspiration and their children move back up the social scale. Thus proving it's not luck, of course, but background.
But then, that's what the crab bucket is: background. A half-decent education can overcome the crab bucket. That is luck.

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When I put my kids into private school I was shocked at the reaction from people in both our families. Some were happy, but it was incredibly eye opening to see how many were openly hostile! Outraged and asking what was wrong with the state mandated minimum (education) that was provided. It had a non-trivial impact on me tbh. Because, I could have got a fancy a car or a big house and instead I viewed any money I made as something to invest into the our kids. Plenty of people COULD do it, and don't because they'd rather have a HP car on the drive lol.... so you're exactly right @Grammarnut. I don't talk about it now but have found this thread quite therapeutic (even if some think I'm a troll). My fear is the overton window keeps narrowing and the world we remember is no longer.

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