Do you think you can be a socialist and

[Swedes]

1. Pay for your child to be independently educated?
2. Buy a house in right catchment for the right school?
3. Feign religion to get your child into a faith school?
4. Object to a lottery system for school places with urban areas (ignoring all convenient environmental issues)?
5. Vote Tory? (because some people seem particularly confused)

I don't know many capitalist who don't think all people, humans are equal and should be treated equally under the law these days (unless they're in Saudi and women have no rights I suppose).

So the uncool are equal with the cool. The ugly are equal with the beautiful. But in terms of the effects the differences have on them in marriage, in work, in life the differences are big and it's that that doesn't trouble me as long as those on the low incomes are adequately fed and housed. I don't think the differential per se is a moral wrong at all.

Xenia, I think the tax thing is a bit of a red herring - you're paid more because, as you've said, the market, for whatever reason, thinks that what you do is valuable. Within that valuable profession, you work hard and do well. All fine and good. But there will be professions which require as much skill, training and hard work as yours and which the market, again for whatever reason, doesn't value as much. So you make a good financial choice - you like a job which the market likes. That makes you lucky, and the tax bit could be said to just balance out that luck a bit!

It's a bit like comparing a professional footballer and an international-level swimmer - no distinction in terms of talent, dedication, amount of training, etc, but the market prefers football, so the footballer gets paid, and taxed, more. I can't bring myself to weep for the extra tax paid, tbh.

'humans are equal and should be treated equally under the law' - LMAO Xenia - do you know what you can get on Legal Aid these days? Come on, you can't seriously believe that poor people are treated equally under the law.

You say that you don't see anything morally objectionable about people having wildly differing qualities of life according to their income - well of course it's fair enough for you to have that opinion, but that is what a lot of us do find objectionable.

Yes, I know lots of people find that objectionable but I don't. Nor as I jealous of people who are richer. I am lucky to feel like that.

Whether we weep before we pay a higher rate of redistributive tax presumably depends on our politics. If the percetnage you're allowed to keep from your labours gets to low then people move abroad. 41% is still a large chunk to hand out to be spent as it is spent. Nearly 20% flat rate would be fairer. Clearly a higher % because you earn more is a socialist redistribution of wealth thing. That is unfair.

I am not particularly jealous of people richer than me either. This is because although it would be lovely to have a £100,000 kitchen extension and an extra foreign holiday a year, my life is pretty comfortable. People richer than me are using the money to buy luxuries, not necessities.

If I had to choose between buying my children new shoes or giving them a birthday party like all the other children, I might feel a little differently.

Robin Hood

But Xenia, as I said before, the market is unfair. At present it's unfair in your favour (so you're my hypothetical football player), so it suits you. You don't like tax because you think it's unfair to you. But it's fairer to those whom the market discriminates against. You've stated before that the lottery of birth is unfair, and you're happy with that, but if the state tries to redress some of that inequity, then you cry "not fair".

MadameP, yes, I completely agree - I don't want the extra cash that some people feel essential, but that's because my life is nice. I guess it also depends on what you feel is adequate food and housing. I don't think that it's essential that everyone earn the same, but I think the raw deal for those on low incomes is much too raw.

Xenia, you don't pay 41 per cent tax on your earnings, unless you have a really bad accountant. You pay 41 per cent on the proportion of your earnings that is above the specified amount. A small point but an important one.

And of course, if you are an executive director in a private equity firm you pay lower rates of tax than your office cleaners do.

Yes, but if the vast majority of what you earn is over the 41% tax band (1% of that is NI) then for practical purposes it is mostly 41%.

Anyone can cry it's unfair and if it became even more unfair I'd move countries to a lower tax regime.

Why shouldn't the rich pay more tax than the cleaners but at a lower rate? That seems perfectly fair to me. They are paying more than the cleaner.

We are going to lose people. Switzerland is apparently the most popular place but I am already seeing people making plans. Brown has got this very very wrong. This is just the time when we need to keep that wealth creation in the UK. What a mess he is making.

Just don't move to the canton where it took them until 1980's to give women the vote...

To be honest, my reaction to people who say they are going to leave is 'piss off then'. They've probably spent the last 20 years assiduously avoiding tax and using every loophole in the book, while chiselling out every last shekel of state help and allowances that they are entitled to. They are parasites and we'd be better off without them.

The rich should pay higher rates of tax because they can afford to, and because it is essentially indecent that some people can afford three homes while others can afford none, or that some people can buy themselves helicopters to fly themselves to Ascot while others work three jobs and still cannot afford nutritious food and warm clothes.

Morning all. I'm still trying to get my head round the fact that apparently now I'm in education, I'm 'worth' about one tenth of what I was worth when I was in the legal profession. Funny that, because I work the same number of hours per week, the work is far more intellectually demanding and a hell of a lot more useful to society

Alfiesbabe, that's because you are now (in Hab's Law of Sporting Analogies) a swimmer, whereas you used to be a footballer...

And if you were Cherie Booth you could charge £75k for 3 talks in the US (and indeed I charge rather a lot for speaking which is education... although sadly not in her league) and is it Amis? who is paid a good lot by a university which was in the press recently. Again just market forces.

I don't of course agree with the policywonk statement at all - nothing wrong with some people being able to afford helicopters whilst I drive an £800 car. It's just how it is. Remember the seven deadly sins and envy? People don't seem to go on about envy being sinful these days. Perhaps that's what we need to be teaching at home and in schools more. The green eyed monster jealousy.....

I'm doing bills here.. most important task of the month.

Isn't greed one of the seven deadly sins? I find it funny that any die-hard capitalist would quote the bible in their favour? Surely Jesus would want you to give away your possesssions to the needy?
And my inner peace and radiance is the envy of many wth more money than me

Tis not greed to use the talents God gave you to the best of your abilities to pay a lot of tax, support and educate your own family rather than having the state pay for them and (in some cases) give money away.

I would certainly agree with you on inner peace. Whether you're rich or poor many people are never content and that's very sad.

I suppose it is greed if you are only motivated by money and the possessions you can buy with it, not earning money by helping people or caring for the poor and needy.
I actually don't think it is envy that motivates the likes of policy wonk et al but they seem to get accussed of it often on these threads.
I think the pride that leads people to assume that when others criticise them it could only be fuelled by jealousy could also be deemed sinful.

Xenia, it seems to me that you cannot provide an adequate response to points about indecent levels of inequity, so you retreat to this nonsense about envy.

'Greed: intense and selfish desire for wealth, power or food' - a fair description of the behaviour I'm talking about.

Respect to mrsr's knowledge of the Seven Deadly Sins

Bless You PW

Blimey, this discussion has moved on a bit. Mumsnet seem to have lobbied for a 1% increase in the higher rate of tax as it was 40% the last time I looked. Good old Mumsnet. Higher earners are very often motivated by their jobs themselves and the money they earn is a by-product of their enthusiasm/skill/art or hard-work. I don't buy this reckoning that high earners are arseholes and low earners are saints. Intelligent people surely recognise that a high income does not preclude someone from being a decent human being?

Swedes I haven't seen anyone on here argue that "high earners are arseholes and low earners are saints".

But when obeisance to market forces is turned into an inviolable principle (a theme which you will see running through Xenia's posts) the result is gross inequality, not just of income but of access to basic services, which many of us find offensive and dangerous.