Rich should pay tax
Bank Holiday Weekends are long weekends. If you are having a good time, they go quickly and you get two Saturday nights! If you are not having a good time, they seem like an eternity where you are glad to get back to your routine. Some people go away, other people never go away on Bank Holidays to avoid all the other people going away.
You would think that the extra day was a week with all that is meant to be accomplished over the long weekend. DIY shops heavily advertise before the weekend to sell their goods, because you have so much more time to improve your home. Days out are heavily targeted towards families to have a good time.
In the 1970s leisure time was predicted to increase so much that we would not what to with it. Technology was meant to do the work for us. There was a real anxiety about the amount of leisure time that we would have, and how would we have to learn to deal with it?
So what happened?
In one way the prediction was right: people are retiring for longer, but this creates problems of how it can be afforded. Back then work was not clearly seen as a privilege. To work and earn money we now recognise as a lucky thing to have, and many people across the globe do not have it. In the 1970s work was seen as easy to find. The threat of not having work was only just beginning to be understood.
The idea of machines and technology doing all the work for us, partly felt a bit of a threat. The idea of occupation with a purpose being intrinsic to a healthy productive life, was taken for granted. Only when there was not enough work to go around, did people realise the negative impact of being unemployed.
The inequality between employed and unemployed has grown but not nearly as much as the inequality at work. Wealthy organisations and institutions have given way to the availability of cheap credit to fund the business empires of super-rich individuals.
So “the rich should pay tax”? This makes sense: but will it happen? The rich have never paid their fair share of tax precisely because they are rich. Having money saves you money. Going down to the corner shop and buying one of something whenever you need it is more expensive than going to the supermarket and buying a multi-pack. To buy the multi-pack you need more money in the first place.
The expertise of tax avoidance is financed by the rich, because they have something to lose. To avoid mansion tax you have to have a mansion! There is also the mind-set. We generally fool ourselves that careers come from hard work. Not luck, or knowing someone, or being in the right place at the right time. If you are honest, and examine your work life you know that you have been lucky. You might be good at your job and have worked hard, but so have other people who are not so lucky.
The rich, and particularly the self- made rich are very good at this: they have earned every last penny through their hard work, & graft. They are not going to give it to anyone else. The business brain thinks less of humans and more of money. Their money is meant to grow, not be given away to pull the UK economy out of its hole because it over extended itself.
Hope you had a good bank holiday weekend.
Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2012
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Disclaimer: This weblog content are the views of the writer and for general information only.
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique.