Fairness, Morality, Simplicity

Martin Earley

Description

This is not a work of sociology; it is not based on polling of people's changing views; it is not a sub-Hayekian/Rawlsian analysis of the constitution; it is not a relation of the extended Marxist family; and it does not apply evolutionary perspectives. It has a Christian, often a Judeo-Christian, refrain but it is not harking back to a different era. It values the judgements and experience of the man and woman in the streets where most struggling households live; the role of 'experts' is considered alongside these. The issue of terminating life prematurely is emphasised as a profound moral consideration, which economic considerations alone cannot resolve, and is prior to consideration of the quality of our lives, fairness and redistribution. It is a plea for simplicity so that the ordinary citizen can comprehend proposals, an important form of fairness. It flows from a fundamental objection to the unfairness of the prevailing political economic Zeitgeist of globalisation, a policy fully supported by the governing elites throughout Britain, the rest of Europe, and the United States. This policy has consciously increased inequality to the benefit of the elites and justified this by the purported benefits for all classes in society. The objections of the lesser-educated, lower-earning, under-skilled workers have been discounted as arising from 'populism', which often seems to mean holding uneducated, prejudiced and intemperate opinions, a 'racist' nationalism, and a lack of appreciation of the benefits of globalisation for all including those non-compliant. This further corrodes relations with our political government which have become permeated by a profound distrust, one product of which was the Brexit breakout that the ruling groups attempted to thwart at great cost to their democratic legitimacy. UK citizens perceive ambiguity and dissembling as systematic and deliberate misrepresentation. Party politicians routinely mislead for party advantage, clothed in the rhetoric of beneficence and a more generous offering than the other parties. This fiscal dishonesty follows from their priority for the most effective presentation of vote-winning promises, rather than responsible policies, which have slipped the mooring of transparently balanced budgets. It cannot be readily fitted into the Left Wing or Right Wing categories that assist academic and commentariat simplifications.

Sujets

• Public administration

Informations

• Publié par: Distributed by eBookpartnership
• Date de parution: 17 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781839524691
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

This edition published 2022
Copyright © Dr Martin Earley 2020
The right of Dr Martin Earley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Published under licence by Brown Dog Books and
The Self-Publishing Partnership Ltd, 10b Greenway Farm, Bath Rd,
Wick, nr. Bath BS30 5RL
www.selfpublishingpartnership.co.uk

ISBN printed book: 978-1-83952-468-4
ISBN e-book: 978-1-83952-469-1
Cover design by Kevin Rylands
Internal design by Andrew Easton
Printed and bound in the UK
This book is printed on FSC certified paper

But Mr Lebezyatnikov, who follows all the new ideas, explained the other day that in our time compassion is even forbidden by science, as is already happening in England, where they have political economy. (Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment )
When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty. (Confucius)
This does not mean that to give relief to others you ought to make things difficult for yourselves; it is a question of balancing what happens to be your surplus now against their present need and one day they may have something to spare that will supply your own need. This is how we strike a balance. (St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, 8:13–15)
Plurality should not be assumed unnecessarily. (William of Ockham)
Socialism: a broad human movement on behalf of the underdog. (Tawney)
A government that takes from Peter to give to Paul can always count on the support of the latter. (George Bernard Shaw)
Complexity is likely to become the most significant issue in governmental operations in the future. If not checked, it will increasingly lead to ‘state capture’ by those who have more resources, or to a popular backlash. (Tanzi)
Contemporary politics is dominated by oligarchies of agenda-setting elites whose fundamental method of operation is the bargaining of interests. (MacIntyre)
The common good of a political society is not only: the collection of public commodities and services – the roads, ports, schools etc. – which the organisation of common life presupposes; a sound fiscal condition of the state and its military power; the body of just laws, good customs and wise institutions, which provide the nation with its structure; the heritage of its great historical remembrances, its symbols and its glories; its living traditions and cultural treasures… The common good […] includes also […] the sum of or sociological integration of all the civil conscience, political virtues, and sense of right and liberty, of all the activity, material prosperity and spiritual riches, of unconsciously operative hereditary wisdom, of moral rectitude, justice, friendship, happiness, virtue and heroism in the individual life of its members. (Maritain)
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PREMATURE TERMINATION OF LIVES
FUNDAMENTALS OF FISCAL POLICY
1. Identities
2. Basic principles
3. Capital formation
4. National budgets and National Insurance
5. Full employment
PSWS PROGRAMMES AND TAX EXPENDITURES
6. Housing
7. Health
8. Education
9. Pensions
10. Income support and social services
11. Non-welfare public expenditure
12. Tax expenditures
ADMINISTRATION AND GOVERNANCE
13. Regional and local government
14. Nation building
15. Civil society
16. The well-being of other nations
FAIRNESS, SUFFICIENCY AND REDISTRIBUTION
17. Rawls, the liberal consensus and distribution
18. Entitlements and responsibilities
19. Possible impact on budgets
CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION:
This is not a work of sociology; it is not based on polling of people’s changing views; it is not a sub-Hayekian/Rawlsian analysis of the constitution; it is not a relation of the extended Marxist family; and it does not apply evolutionary perspectives. It has a Christian, often a Judeo-Christian, refrain but it is not harking back to a different era. It values the judgements and experience of the man and woman in the streets where most struggling households live; the role of ‘experts’ is considered alongside these. The issue of terminating life prematurely is emphasised as a profound moral consideration, which economic considerations alone cannot resolve, and is prior to consideration of the quality of our lives, fairness and redistribution. It is a plea for simplicity so that the ordinary citizen can comprehend proposals, an important form of fairness.
It flows from a fundamental objection to the unfairness of the prevailing political economic Zeitgeist of globalisation, a policy fully supported by the governing elites throughout Britain, the rest of Europe, and the United States. This policy has consciously increased inequality to the benefit of the elites and justified this by the purported benefits for all classes in society. The objections of the lesser-educated, lower-earning, under-skilled workers have been discounted as arising from ‘populism’, which often seems to mean holding uneducated, prejudiced and intemperate opinions, a ‘racist’ nationalism, and a lack of appreciation of the benefits of globalisation for all including those non-compliant. This further corrodes relations with our political government which have become permeated by a profound distrust, one product of which was the Brexit breakout that the ruling groups attempted to thwart at great cost to their democratic legitimacy. UK citizens perceive ambiguity and dissembling as systematic and deliberate misrepresentation. Party politicians routinely mislead for party advantage, clothed in the rhetoric of beneficence and a more generous offering than the other parties. This fiscal dishonesty follows from their priority for the most effective presentation of vote-winning promises rather than responsible policies which have slipped the mooring of transparently balanced budgets. It is a profound concern that politicians have become so careless of speaking the plain truth. To become a successful party politician it is necessary to be a master of ambiguity and a mistress of beneficence. Language is used to disguise propaganda and mass deception, as Orwell argued, with the great danger that the audience gradually loses its ability to distinguish rhetoric and reality. Orwell’s (1946) view of political language resonates: ‘designed to make lies sound truthful … and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind’. The level of misrepresentation during the EU debate, by both sides, only reinforced this perception. Many people, however, saw through the rhetoric, propaganda and deliberate lies, a sign of hope.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), usually politely, has pointed out some of the fiscal obfuscations, and presented well-argued proposals for many areas of taxation and welfare. Some are gems, some outside my purview, but those on pensions are unbalanced, and those on the equivalence of income tax and National Insurance misguided. I do not attempt to cover their range of concerns in anything like their depth, but to propose, and justify, simple and principled reforms in a range of social spending programmes and in some aspects of taxation. I do not share their faith in the Mirrlees school of Pareto-optimal tax finessing (although this may have more validity on business taxes), but seek to be more broad-brush, and no doubt simplistic. Our problems have not been resolved by the Keynesian/Social Democratic riff: or by a continuous recourse to the taxpayer; or by the unregulated market without a sense of responsibility to the weakest or for employment; or by the undemocratic offloading of our political economy to the excessive trespass of the European Union. Civil society – religion, sports, universities, charities, the very local and small-scale – has been neglected when it is essential to the well-being of the body politic and the common good. National identity is far, far more important for those people outside the international, secular elites. Greater devolution to the regions and the localities is a support, not a threat, to this. It is suggested, but not entailed, that eventually a de facto, if not de jure, British Isles identity should develop with sharper distinctions between England (and Wales), Ireland (and Ulster), and Scotland (and the Islands). The rhetorical recourse to global agencies to solve problems has, by and large, failed because nations follow their national interest and because most people prefer a sense of place. We are not citizens of the world although we have responsibilities to the peoples of other nations in need both in charity and justice .
This work rebuts several commonplaces: National Insurance contributions by employers and employees are not taxes like income tax and VAT; inequality is not per se poverty; tapering on the present scale is unnecessary, greatly detracts from simplicity and increases dependence; private pension tax relief and public service pension supplements from the taxpayer are not fair or necessary; progressive redistribution through successive deciles is only one approach to a fair redistribution; the rich should help the poor as a pragmatic policy as much as a moral one; Rawls is not the anointed solution to the conundrums of social justice; the routine termination of a life in the mother’s womb after a few weeks and the occasional termination of life before a natural end are almost never justified, being obviously antithetical to a civilised body politic; overseas aid is mostly not separate to foreign policy; there are too many universal benefits and there are too many tax reliefs, abatements and allowances; the family should be bolstered, not undermined; there are many forms of capital formation towards greater individual and