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?

Good suggestion, many thanks.

To be honest, this makes me think of 'benevolent dictatorship/ monarchy'.. As King James I said, 'I will govern according to the common weal but not according to the common will.' Extended to the aristocracy and later to property owners, but fore a long time excluding poorer people.

If the better-off were indeed also the most benevolent, or the wisest and most far-sighted, there might be a point in this. But there is no evidence that this is the case. People tend to vote for what helps them or at best what helps the people whom they know. Before the 20th century, though there were indeed some reforms that inmproved conditions for the poorer in society, poorer people had much worse conditions than later on when they had much more representation.

Nor is being a net contributor in taxes the only thing important to playing a useful role i n society, though I don't think a vote should be a reward for usefulness or indeed a reward at all- but I accept that people performing particularly useful activities may thus become more aware of what is most helpful to the country.. Many crucial, often life-saving jobs are not that well-paid. During the lockdowns, many of the people classed as 'essential key workers' were in rather low-paid occupations. Should such people not have the vote? (Of coursew, an obvious solution is to pay them better, but that definitely won't happen if they don't have the vote.) And this doesn't include people - ranging from family carers to voluntary charity workers- who doi important work for little or no pay.

It is already the case that poorer people are less likely to vote; this is something to be combatted; not enforced by law.

Ironically the cost of this would mean paying more tax to fund it.

Scruton argued that rights only make sense when grounded in duties and obligations. Seen this way, I think something like a vote ought to be earned. The difference between being a civilian and a citizen. Starship Troopers tied to the military had some form of it I hear though I've not read or watched it. But Plato's Republic has a similar idea though diff only an elite 'best of the best' get it in return for giving up property etc and other obligations etc...

Still mansplaining I see.

At the risk of starting yet another back and forth between us, Roger Scruton had some pretty vile opinions and your constant referencing of him does nothing to further your argument.

@ObelixtheGaul , surely that's why tax rates are banded, to acknowledge your ability to contribute while working? Foolish to tax all income at 45%, if you then need help. My issue arose with the invention of working tax credits, as they then were, to subsidise employers dodging SSP and pension contributions by restricting the number of hours' of work offered.

I believe universal suffrage is the fairest system, but in the words of Churchill, "Democracy is the worst form of governance, apart from all the others that have been attempted."

Scruton is much hated by the left, but A BIT of his view is quite important. The bit that acknowledges that we are all free to make choices, but that we then have to live with the outcome of those choices. Which then requires me, and you, and everyone else to agree, I did get together with x, and then realised they were not good for me, or dodgy, or a hazard to the human race.

An author, Theodore Dalrymple, who is a medical doctor, now retired I think, from general practise in central Birmingham, wrote a series of essays about his practice in Winson Green and it's surroundings, and many of them are about his experience as a prison doctor. He writes very well and fluently, but it is shocking reading because he is unsparing about the depravity he saw. He generally goes gently on women but he is quite hard about women making poor partner choices.

No, you were arguing that a baby born into great wealth and privilege isn’t lucky.

Would you mind answering my questions please?

You’re still conflating two different uses of “luck”. I was arguing that a baby born into great wealth and privilege can’t simply be dismissed as “lucky”.

I’m not denying that circumstances can vary, or that a baby switched at birth would be unlucky. Of course they would. That’s trivial and not in dispute.
My point was that a child born into wealth and stability isn’t “lucky” in the moral sense being implied, where “luck” is used to claim they don’t deserve what they inherit. That situation comes from accumulated choices, discipline, investment, and obligation across generations, not a random roll of the dice.

If that child were switched at birth, then yes, that would be bad luck for them. But that scenario has nothing to do with my argument, which is about whether inheritance becomes morally illegitimate simply because someone labels it “luck”.

If I’ve misunderstood what you’re trying to argue, explain it clearly so I can follow. Or tell me how you’d answer your own question. What does the baby-swap scenario prove in your view?

Well, yes. This is why we pay taxes - and we have agreed to do this so that everyone may benefit, that there be a level(ish) playing field and equality of opportunity. There won't necessarily be equality of outcome, of course. There is also the problem of the crab bucket, which teachers who witter on about 'relevant' curricula enable. Teach them Latin, say I (who never had the opportunity. Ditto grammar - thought to be old fashioned for my generation.)

I don't agree with a return to more votes for the better educated, wealthier. Always a bad idea.

I was not lucky enough to win a scholarship to a grammar school. I had a speech impediment which led to remedial reading classes until my mother kicked up a fuss since I was already a good reader, but, of course, I mis-pronounced some words because of the impediment. This is one reason I get very annoyed with teachers who say that children with speech impediments can't learn phonics, of course they bloody can, you just have to accept the odd mispronunciation and guide correct speech. Anyway, the result of this was that I ended in the B stream (I changed school and of course the remedial reading was in the report from previous school) which did not follow the 11+ curriculum. Even so I narrowly failed and had I been a boy I would have passed (higher pass mark for girls in my LEA) and both my brothers went to grammar school.

The bit he quoted is from Hamlet. I did it for A level. I haven't seen Withnail and I (I don't think - possible seen a bit) but whether that's where the words are from or not they are from Hamlet (a famous speech). And I bet he/she does know because they went to a boarding grammar school (down thread somewhere, reply to me).

The OP is loving all the attention from women is what I see here.

Would anyone post on a forum to start a discussion if they didn’t want to attract attention to the point they were making @echt ? God bless. Have a beautiful day.

I do agree about the teaching to a degree, mostly because I adored Shakespeare and would have loved to do Latin. But educating according to employment necessity will result in a lot more of this, I'm afraid, as employment becomes more and more specialised in the digital age.

Educating the working classes has always, to a degree, been about employment. And, to be honest, to follow OP's model, Shakespeare doesn't get you in the net contributor bracket. They've now got to fit in all the tech stuff they need to know to get, increasingly, even the most basic employment. If you can't work an iPad, that's going to be a much bigger problem for employers than if you couldn't quote Shakespeare.

Sadly, the English Literature degree I got decades ago is now on the list of 'do you want fries with that?' degrees, and in the modern world of the world and it's mother getting degrees, I have to concur. Shakespeare won't get you in OP's all important 'net contributor' bracket today. Knowing the ins and outs of a duck's arse about digital manipulation, will.

So, much as I agree with you in my heart, I can see we do need to educate children for the world THEY will be living and working in.

Yes, I know. OP's question to me was, 'why can't those on minimum wage be net contributors?'. I gave him the obvious answer first, then moved to the nuance of what he might have actually meant by that.

I still think this thread ignores the bigger picture of how who the government is and what they do affects all of us. The focus is on what they spend on direct support, rather than the decisions they make which aren't about fiscal and practical benefits in the immediacy.

This thread rathers proves that some net contributors have no greater understanding of government than anybody else. That they still only think about the direct effect on themselves, financially.

I've not really had a response to my point about foreign policy from the OP and why the importance of us all not just having a vote, but being aware of the issues beyond our tax bill.

If only a small percentage of people can vote, I want that percentage of people to be held responsible for any action taken by their elected government which results in reduced national security. If there was to be a draft (unlikely in modern warfare, but this entire thread is a theoretical discussion) those not considered to have 'earned' their vote would still have to go and fight. If there were air strikes, the bombs aren't going to discriminate between deserving and undeserving residents.

We get a vote because we live here. What the government does affects us beyond our own pockets. Whilst the modern, populist governments may use our own pockets, our greed or our need, to influence us, we really do need to look past that when we vote. And from where I'm sitting, net contributors are no more likely to do that than any other voter.

This is, in reality, a narrow, parochial thread, which is, when you boil down all the words, 'I don't want to pay for anyone else'. Which is fine, and understandable. But it's such a narrow view of what our vote is all about.

If you vote for a dictator on the basis that he's going to either cut your taxes or up your benefits, it's not going to be just you who will be affected by the brutal regime. Therefore, it can't just be you, and people in the same financial boat as you, who make that decision. Of course, as we know, everyone having the vote doesn't mean that decision won't still be made, but the point is that everyone has at least the chance to change the outcome of a decision that will affect their lives.

If @SBGM247 really wants a vote-earning system, then it should be based not on earnings but on understanding beyond the fiscal needs/wants of the individual. If we're in fantasy theory land, then in actual fact, you should have to prove you have read and understood the manifesto of each party standing for election. In total. Not just the bits that directly affect your wage packet or lack of it.

Just waiting til AI takes all the jobs and 3 people do all the earning. You'll have a shit.

So glad I'll be dead by then in so many ways, but the bonus would have been to see all the 'you should have worked harder in a field that will make you more money' find out why it's not always that simple...

I think access to university (even for degrees that many people sneer at these days like English Literature, Marketing etc) is important for the 'working classes' if you want to use that term. University is not just about training people for jobs, especially for kids from poorer backgrounds. It opens doors to different ways of thinking, different people, perspectives and different expectations, and that really can break cycles of disadvantage. Turning education into nothing more than short-term job training misses the wider value of creativity, curiosity and learning how to think properly. Digital skills matter, but jobs change all the time but the need to adapt and understand the world doesn’t. If we only value education by a league table of 'worthy subjects', we end up shrinking opportunities, not expanding them.

The right to vote isn’t payment for taxes, it’s protection against being ruled without consent.
Once you make political rights conditional on wealth or productivity, democracy stops being equal and starts being owned.

Posts like yours genuinely make me lose faith in the human race.
Such selfishness.

I still don't understand why if I'm on minimum wage why I couldn't be net positive to tell you the truth? I'm sure I'm missing obvious info here that others may take for granted. Please educate me.

Good post @ObelixtheGaul and I'm starting to think my initial idea was perhaps poorly thought through and born out of frustration. Could have been better if I'd come up with some of the ideas shared in this thread. You've persuaded me of some of that.

However, let's not give up the discussion just yet! It is rather fun. I like the idea of a minimum standard people have to meet to vote such as having read the manifestos.

What was the question about foreign policy that I missed?

Ofc we're ruled without consent. Look at the state of this country.