There is something tremendously refreshing in the return to normal left-right politics – or rather, in the return of the politics of community versus the politics of self-interest. And there’s no clearer sign that we’re back in that land than the resighting of our old friend, the Tory canard that is the “politics of envy.” Here comes Tim Montgomerie, raising the flag of indifference to others:
It was one one of the few real accomplishments of New Labour that they appeared to understand that heavy taxation of the wealth was counterproductive, leading to a brain drain of talent and a killing of incentives. That belief died today. Old Labour is back and with it an attempt to reignite the politics of envy. Paul Goodman MP recently reminded us where envy takes us: “In the medium to long term, envy means lower profits, less wealth, fewer jobs, less money for public services.”
Brilliant right-wing corrosion of language. Assert that something means something else – in this case, that progressive taxation means “envy.” Then go from there.
Look, Tim. Just look. The last two decades have seen a massive, obese, wobbly explosion in personal wealth. A great many people have become very, very rich. You can’t walk through London these days without tripping over a millionaire. It’s been a lovely, lovely time for the money men. And now the chickens have come home to roost. Millions of people are being affected by the collapse of a system which engendered huge paper wealth with little long term capital investment (no railroads or telecoms networks this time around, no sir). We’re all going to have tighten belts, put money aside, and generally act a little bit more like adults in a library rather than kids in a low-security sweet shop. The impact of the recession on someone earning less than £20,000 is going to be much harder than the impact of a tax rise on someone earning more than £150,000. That’s not envy. It’s fact. The new reality is this: we’re only going to get out of this by working together. Community is the new deregulation. Deal with it, and don’t try and set up abstract social divisions by banging on about “envy.” It just won’t wash.
Of course, the impact of a tax on one who earns 150,000 might also include having less money to hire new workers and give raises to the productive ones already in your employ.
To put it differently, the higher tax may have less of an effect on the person being taxed, but on the people that it could have been given to as payment for a service.
“Community is the new deregulation” has a nice ring to it, but it puts the burden of proof on you to demonstrate that the tax money (which is not costless to transfer; wealth is lost just by the mere fact that you have to pay tax collectors and bookkeepers) will be used to promote people’s well-being than it would have been if left well enough alone.
Did I miss something? Aren’t we talking about tax cuts in the first instance, followed by tax rises in future? Are you arguing that future tax rises will be a bad idea? Or should we leave the debt we’re going to have to accrue in place? Or do you not accept that we need to increase debt?
Hm…can I just admit that I’m dumb and misread what you were saying, and cry mercy?
My apologies, I didn’t properly understand the policy under discussion.
Yes. Yes you can. And thank you for being disarmingly polite and making me feel rude.
No problem–I figure it’s the best way to cut my losses as far as putting my foot in my mouth are concerned