The politics of envy is something which has always annoyed me. It is an erroneous and simplistic belief within socialism that if some people are richer than others, then by taxing them more heavily, society will improve for the rest of us.It thinks that there is a 'set cake' which is divided either equally or unequally between all members of society.
The truth is that the 'cake' is actually flexible and the size depends utterly on the level of effort introduced by wealth creators and investors. It is called capitalism and has been proved to work but it is political anathema to the left. It offends both their philosophies and their sensibilities.
If taxes are raised on those who are on P.A.Y.E., then certainly revenues can be increased at the risk of alienating almost the entire middle class. Is it really so necessary to target the Head of a large Comprehensive who is earning £80k? Precisely what is achieved except that more deputies cannot see why they should bother to pursue headships?
But then of course, these are not the targets of the left and ironically neither are the £90k bureaucrats, the Council Heads, the top Civil Servants, the quangocrats - so often their own high profile supporters.
They do not mind a local GP being on an average £110k a year and of course most support MPs in their struggles to exist on a pittance.
No. The targets are always people in business; wealth creators; company directors; employers; would-be employers; entrepreneurs and producers. The pretence of course, is always that they only have in their sights those who profit excessively from investments and that tiny group on company boards who enjoy sinecures.
It is all the old class warfare and balderdash. I have met a number of wealthy men and - sorry - but not one has fitted the profile of having their brutal heel on the neck of the downtrodden wage slave. It is largely a pre-victorian fantasy; the product of a belief system which circumstances has rendered outmoded and puerile. It sounds good to the sixth former who has been at the mercy of a politically biased teacher of history, economics or politics,[in my own case, the indoctrination came in English lessons.]
The targets are a nation's lifeblood; the very people who can be persuaded by punitive taxation not to: invest, nor employ, nor export, nor enlarge their enterprises. These are the very people who may take their business out of this country completely or fail to invest. Why invest if there is a prospect of having your gains be the subject of unreasonable taxation? Why not simply take your funds to a more investor friendly nation?
How foolish to target such people because they make a good living and your socialist dogma tells you to hate them for earning £200k a year when at the same time you keep fairly silent about Frank Lampard earning 50% more than that in a FORTNIGHT playing football at Chelsea!
The fact that voters have taken socialism seriously for so long is a bit of a joke but it doesn't make me laugh.
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