[Diggers350] Re: In the Middle Ages a serf only had to work four months of the year

[Andrew Pratt]

I agree with Chris... in a more democratic and cooperative society paying taxes will be seen as more people as a good thing... it's how we resource things in common, according to our means.
 
It's a sign of how the neoliberalists and allies have influenced the mindset and discourse of so many that Taxes are automatically bad and terrible (especially for the rich by the way...   who of course pay by far the lowest proportion of their income in tax)...
(And please note we as a sosciety hardly touch the wealth of the rich)  Be careful of anything you read from the Adam Smith Institute!   
 
To change our societies we need to do many things including changing values which includes advocating for equitable and redistributive taxation, and challenging the conceit that humans are irrevocably selfish and concerned to profit at their neighbour's expense.
 
The Diggers email list has been good but there's been funny reactionary stuff posted on here and it seems like too much coinspiracy theory stuff...  obssessing about the Royal Family truly is a sideshow

Telephone = 07980 60 20 88
 
From: Diggers350-noreply at yahoogroups.com
To: Diggers350 at yahoogroups.com
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 12:00:36 +0100
Subject: [Diggers350] Re: In the Middle Ages a serf only had to work four months of the  year














 

 



  


    
      
      
      I think this line of approach is totally misguided!!!



We only think of taxation as wicked because we have little (or no) control over how money assigned for community use is spent. Especially that so much of it is spent on the self-aggrandisement of the rulers who are mean to be acting on our behalf, and instead minimise spending our common behalf in any way.



In the days of soft socialism between about 1945 and 1970, a reasonable proportion was spent on state and local authority based welfare, things that it made far more sense for us to buy communally rather than individually and more so when state purchasing power had some leverage.



It was precisely the eternal right wing argument against taxation, characatured as the rich having to subsidise an undesrving poor, that was one of the chief arguments deployed to make any form of socialism a vote loser. That was the 'push' and there was also the 'pull' of the rich (remember the entry of the "Gnomes of Zurich") who had money to lend refusing to lend any longer on state terms.



I don't think the Adam Smith Institute has ever figured as an advocate for sharing or equality. 



We need to direct our critique more accurately at how we have lost all influence on public policy.




    
     

    
    






   		 	   		  
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