I think it’s a product of capitalism. “Fair” depends on your point of view I guess.

So what’s yours?

My (overwhelmingly unpopular) point of view is that you reap what you sow, everyone has a chance at making a success of it under a capitalistic system; if you don’t then that’s tough shit. What’s your view on it?

What do you define by “sow”, hard work or your parents’ ability to sustain you through your education?

You don’t need rich parents or an expensive education to make money by inventing things or working hard, that’s obvious surely?

But the social mobility statistics would suggest otherwise. Sure, people do make better of themselves, but it’s a damn sight harder than it’s been since the 1970s. Unless your parents are rich of course.

Britain PLC has to compete with the rest of the world for resouces. A system which fails to make the most of its own human resourses will make it uncompetetive with countries that better exploit human capital. That means giving the poor access to education, health and providing infrastructure that makes them as productive as possible.

Taxing the poor out of education, leaving them little choice but to reamin in cheap areas where there is no work and perpetuating benefit dependancy does nothing to drive the economy forward or ultimately increase tax revenues.

Making the poor pay most of their income in tax is counter productive. Making the rich pay merely half their income in tax has little impact of their lifestyle or ability to contribute positively to society.

A notion of “ability to pay” is essential to a tax system and lacking from most the tax systems in the world. VAT is one of the bluntest tax instruments used and yet institutionalised continent wide by the EU.

The longer this government is is power the more they begin to resemble nazis.

It’s comments like these that go to explaining why it took me so long to realise that Surrounded By Zulus and Zulu Eleven are (apparently) different people. That and the fact that I’m thick.

You don’t need rich parents or an expensive education to make money by inventing things or working hard, that’s obvious surely?

Brutally you do, if you want a house look to the bank of mum or dad, if you want a decent education move to a decent catchment area, you need to know the game, If your poor and working 16hours a day with your kids hanging around on the street, no chance. You will always get the odd person making it against the odds, but the reason they are noteworthy is because they are the exception.

And this is the thing, hard work, look around and you will see plenty of people working hard for crap money, so hard work is not the answer.

Remember that half the population is of below median intelligence, so clearly some people will be better able to do certain tasks compared to others. Effort does not lead to money.

Further the system we have, and have always had favours those with money and passively prevents those without getting to the top.

My (overwhelmingly unpopular) point of view is that you reap what you sow, everyone has a chance at making a success of it under a capitalistic system; if you don’t then that’s tough shit. What’s your view on it?

is that a troll or just naive?
Would you like to use some statistics to show that everyone has an even chance? Why are the cabinet made up of privately educated millionaires rather than hard working council house born folk?
It is a myth of capitalism – yes you may get a richard Branson and an Alan Sugar but you also get landed gentry and inhereted wealth with little change. Old school tie network etc

You don’t need rich parents or an expensive education to make money by inventing things or working hard, that’s obvious surely?

yes we should all invent something and obviously someone who collects bin is lazy as is the care worker doing 60 hours a week for the minimum wage.

Capitalism is based on winners and loosers , obviously you need far more many looser than winners [ think pyramid ] so most folk will loose. If you are born into wealth you will almost certainly be wealthy and if you are born poor you will almost certainly be poor. The stats do not support your view unless you wish to give great weight to outliers and ignore the overwhelming majority. So yes some may escape [relative]poverty but most dont and hard work alone wont help you.

I stopped contributing to this when the good folk on STW pushed facts to one side to continue an argument, but what I have just read from junkyard is just laugh out loud nonsense! I had a poor family, came to England when I was 12 and have since worked bloody hard to get to where I am today. It really frustrates me when people use the argument of having money to make money. Total b@ll@cks, work hard, be honest, have integrity and live within your means.

mashiehood, no one is saying you can’t make it through hard work, but the reality is that far more don’t make it than do make it. I can show you people who work 60hours a week and are still relatively poor. You need to work, have the brains and a good amount of luck.

You can say you make your own luck, which is to a point true, but you still need to get the right job at the right time, which means beating the other people going for the same job, it helps to be born in the right town, to be in the right place, it helps to have a supportive family.

However the most depressing thing i have heard someone say, a reasonably bright girl, she wouldn’t go onto A levels because none of her friends were going, her parents hadn’t bothered. Peer pressure does matter, family background matters.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/income_tax/table2-4.xls

Too much middle class guilt in this thread, I’m out

Well said Mashiehood – sensible retort to the patronising and insulting BS above. So much of the current nonsense that typifies these debates stems from the fact that arguments about “what is fair” have moved on from the 18th and 19th Centuries’ concept of “equality of opportunity” to the 20th and 21st Century obsession with “equality of outcome.” I wonder what happened to UK/GB competiveness over this period??

There are too many Dodo’s from Alice in Wonderland crying’ “Everyone had won, and all must have prizes” and too few asking Carroll’s follow on question, “But who will give the prizes.”

Of course, having money will make life easier for some in the respects that people claim. But it was ever thus. Life is not fair – learn to live with it. We are all born into different circumstance and given access to different talents.

So we have Child A – born into a rich family enjoying the benefits that this may bring – lets say the PM
Child B – born with the natural talent to run faster than anyone else – lets say Usain Bolt
Child C – born with the ability to kick a football around better than most – Shrek
Child D – incredible dexterity that allows him to lay the piano better than most – Ling Lang

I might feel uncomfortable with this because A has reached a position that I cannot aspire to, B can run faster than I will ever be able to, C can score goals (and meet grannies) that are out of my reach, and D will lay Lizt better that I can play chopsticks. Tough, I have to live with that. If I am to argue that I have a right to penalise A for having an unfair access to money, shouldn’t I handicap Usain Bolt (force him to tie his legs together), blindfold Shrek, chop of Ling Lang’s fingers. Of course not, I should allow then to maximise the benefits that the unfair distribution of natural and other benefits produces.

The argument about Cabinet representation is equally stupid. So the current political elite happen to have a bias towards an Oxbridge education. What is wrong with that. For whatever reason, they have had access to the best education that the is country provides – should we not make the most of this? Would you rather go back to having a Deputy PM who was barely capable of speaking a coherent sentence, just to satisfy a vague notion of representation?

I don’t go into a hospital expecting the staff of the operating theatre to be a cross section of society, I go there expecting them to be the best at operating on me successfully. I don’t go to a football match to see a cross-representation of British society. Ditto, Government.

For most of the 20th Century, UK politics focused incorrectly on the search for greater equality of outcome. Money was the most obvious focus via taxation and the focus on taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. The result – a vast redistribution of wealth – BUT and it is a big BUT, there has not been a more equitable distribution. Instead new classes of privileged have merely replaced the old – the bureaucrats, the local council officials, even TU leaders, the hedge fund managers, the footballers, Ant and Dec….Not exactly the outcome that was intended.

(BTW – Richard Branson was educated at Stowe School – hardly a rags to riches story)

RJ that is income tax only isn’t it? But interesting.

If you had to point to a barrier to social mobility – rather than removing 50% rate (which generates relatively little money, sends a negative message to businesses, and is just a totemic symbol that we are all suffering together…) – I would point to the disgusting way all parties have treated University education. They have encouraged the proliferation of useless courses, third-rate institutions, and an assumption that 50% of people should go to Uni. Then they have realised how expensive that is, and put in place a regime of tuition fees and lack of grant support which discourages those from families who have not been to university. This is a shitty way to treat the next generation.

How do you get to the conclusion that footballers and hedge fund managers are the beneficiaries of a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor?

Would you rather go back to having a Deputy PM who was barely capable of speaking a coherent sentence, just to satisfy a vague notion of representation?

Straw man.

We actually need a large rise in top rate income tax.
This would pay for a significant increase in Welfare
Benefits.An increase long overdue and necessary.

Not much point in debating when people like monkey seem to think that economics is zero sum.

“A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.”

How is using the real-life example of John Prescott a Straw Man?…

…actually maybe you are right, perhaps he was indeed the real straw man – a man without the appropriate ability put position to be one unfortunate accident away from running the country. I had missed that. Good point Konabunny.

On the footballer and hedge fund question – its simple. When laws interfere with people’s natural pursuit of their own values, they will (try to) find a way round. They will evade the law, they may break the law or they may leave the country.

In the 1980’s a US economist wrote that, “when people start to break one set of laws, the lack of respect for the law inevitably spreads to all laws, even those that everyone regards moral and proper – laws against violence, theft and vandalism.” Sounds familiar.

what i want to see is the best in the best jobs, that is best for the job. However the system we have is far to much promotion to limit of incompetence. Rather than taking a good worker and rewarding them in their current job there seems to be this idea that promotion is good, sometimes it is sometimes it is not. I have met to many people whose aim has been to get a promotion to get more money, but who should not be promoted because the skills they have are better used where they are.

But best also means you need to get those from the economic bottom into a position where they can demonstrate their skills. having money should buy you no favours. I want the best as my doctor, if that means the child of a doctor fine, but the chance should be there for the child of a street cleaner. Can anyone tell me that the current government is made up of the best people to run the country?

I am not in favour of trying to say you can do anything you want because it is a lie. If you are intelligent then go to university get a thinking job, but if your not then don’t play games and expect someone to take on huge debts, we need plumbers, we need brickies, we need cleaners, someone has to pick the fruit in the orchards,

I do wonder if the way forward is actually to take a step back and look again at grammar schools, to look again at technical colleges, polytechnics, move away from looking solely at academic performance and putting far more effort into apprenticeships.

But i am also of the belief that inheritance tax should be raised not lowered, that salaries should be capped at the top, that tax credits should be abolished, that no job should pay less than what is needed to live on. That housing, should be cheaper i also accept that vested interests mean that the current system is what we have.

In the 1980’s a US economist wrote that, “when people start to break one set of laws, the lack of respect for the law inevitably spreads to all laws, even those that everyone regards moral and proper – laws against violence, theft and vandalism.” Sounds familiar.

Oh you mean the way people fiddle their expenses?

Oh you mean the way people fiddle their expenses?

Exactly – among other examples!!

But best also means you need to get those from the economic bottom into a position where they can demonstrate their skills

100% agree – equality of opportunity and one of the best ways is….

to take a step back and look again at grammar schools, to look again at technical colleges, polytechnics, move away from looking solely at academic performance and putting far more effort into apprenticeships

Far better than making places like Eton take on set quotas or create free schools as their most famous (currently) old boy seems to suggest. If you ask the heads of most of these schools they know that what you say is correct ie, to look again at Grammar Schools is a much better instrument for creating social mobility and allowing equality of opportunity without requiring @£30k for schools or @£9k for university to achieve it.

How is using the real-life example of John Prescott a Straw Man?…

Because no-one is proposing the thing that you are criticising.

On the footballer and hedge fund question – its simple. When laws interfere with people’s natural pursuit of their own values, they will (try to) find a way round. They will evade the law, they may break the law or they may leave the country

This makes absolutely f’all sense as a reply to the question I asked, which was “how do you get to the conclusion that footballers and hedge fund managers are the beneficiaries of a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor?”. In fact, it’s quite impressively disjointed.

This makes absolutely f’all sense as a reply to the question I asked, which was “how do you get to the conclusion that footballers and hedge fund managers are the beneficiaries of a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor?”. In fact, it’s quite impressively disjointed.

I would tend to agree, footballers and hedge fund managers aren’t the right example, now have a look at FTSE directors, there role is to ensure a return for shareholders, on that measure if there salaries and bonuses match the performance of the stock then fine, but it isn’t and hasn’t for a while. Then compare there packages with those on the shop floor, and again the two do not stack up.

I have just read from junkyard is just laugh out loud nonsense! I had a poor family, came to England when I was 12 and have since worked bloody hard to get to where I am today. It really frustrates me when people use the argument of having money to make money. Total b@ll@cks, work hard, be honest, have integrity and live within your means.

you obviously did not work hard at reading or thinking did you?
You get the odd exception who works hard and breaks through but it is far from typical as all the stats on social mobility previosuly presented demonstrate. No one has said it is impossible just hughly unlikely. It is not alevel playing field or a true meritocracy nor is ther ethe same access to opportunity. The inference there is that everyone who does not make it is lazy and that is BS

sensible retort to the patronising and insulting BS above

WOW poweful words and what an example you used there. 3 get there because of what they have [ natural /meritocratic] and how hard they work and one because of who they were born to. If you cannot see the difference between the three and someoen form born to millionaiires, educated at Eton and joinindg the Bullingdon club then there is little point explaning it further to you.

For whatever reason, they have had access to the best education that the is country provides

could you remind us of the rates of private v public schools in Oxbridge graduates? It is money that primarily got the majority there even though your whole rant is to suggest money is not a factor in what you achieve in life… you cannot even pick good examples to demonstrate this view.

You get the odd exception who works hard and breaks through… …No one has said it is impossible just hughly unlikely

The concept that anybody can be successful, is not the same as everybody can be successful.

The fact that, by your own admission, those who work hard can break through, proves that the system works!

Celebs and footballers get paid huge sums, but they don’t just sit on it at home, they go spend it. I know that Michael Owen keeps the economy going very nicely in the Cheshire/Welsh borders with all his stables and horses. Katy Price spent a fortune on a pink Range Rover from a dealer near where I live. So Celebs & footballers do add to the economy.

The that concept that anybody can be successful, is not the same as everybody can be successful.

The fact that, by your own admission, those who work hard can break through, proves that the system works!

But the system doesn’t work, you only have to look at the quality of those at the top. If the system worked those at the top would be the best and clearly in many cases they are not. Hard work does not get you to the top, too often it is who you know not what you know that gets you through.

Hard work does not get you to the top

Yep, lazy b’stard shirkers the lot of them:

ice cream/care homes/gyms
logistics
knickers and pens
ceramics/textiles/holidays
phones

A complete shortage of opportunities for people to make good for themselves in the UK isn’t there!

Fine then, “Usually hard work doesn’t get you to the top” if you prefer.

Any evidence that their work ethic is any stronger than anyone else’s?

no it proves that some can for it to be true all would have to. Are you really claiming we live in a meritocracy and that wealth offers you no advantage in life ? are the people foolishly sending their kids to private school – as has been mentioned oxbridge graduates do so much better and yet they get there disproportionately from private schools.
To argue their is equality of opportunity irrespective of wealth is ludicrous and not even worthy of debate or serious consideration.
You will be telling me next that rupert murdochs son got where he is today due to hard work rather than who his dad is I assume or that the Duke of Westminster got where he is today due to hard work.
exception – One that is excepted, especially a case that does not conform to a rule or generalization

so those are the exceptions, and out of interest what are there backgrounds?

You can argue as much as you like but the brutal reality is that for the majority hard work is not going to get you to the top. It is far more complicated than that.

I don’t see carers in the working 60hours a week, and i mean working not skiving off in front of some PC or on their way to some lunch meeting, earning £100k a year?

Nope, I’m saying that there is nothing stopping anyone in the UK, from even the humblest of backgrounds, being a success, other than luck and perspiration.

You still seem to be using equality of outcome as the measure of equality of opportunity 🙄

Nope, I’m saying that there is nothing stopping anyone in the UK, from even the humblest of backgrounds, being a success, other than luck and persipiration.

True there is nothing stopping anyone succeeding, if they are LUCKY, but to be honest i would rather this country relied more on ability than on luck. Can you honestly tell me that David Cameron is the best candidate for PM?

Zulu-Eleven – Member

Nope, I’m saying that there is nothing stopping anyone in the UK, from even the humblest of backgrounds, being a success, other than luck and perspiration.

Well that’s all right then- all you have to do to make a success out of nothing is work like a dog, and be incredibly lucky. I’m sure that’s a great comfort for all those who work like dogs and then aren’t incredibly lucky.

Northwind, you’re still using equality of outcome as the measure of equality of opportunity.*

*edited to clarify point

Hey, we’d all like to have a ten inch cock, but that’s life isn’t it?

I suppose some of us are just lucky 😆

Zulu-Eleven – Member

Northwind, you’re still using outcome as the measure of opportunity.

Of course- you can’t possibly deny that there’s a correlation.

Correlation does not prove causation (also, see my edit above)

Zulu-Eleven – Member

Correlation does not prove causation

Correct. But in this case, do you deny it? Increased opportunity certainly leads to improved outcomes.