Meritocracy: Does anyone "deserve" to be rich? Could such a system exist?

gamerforever wrote:I know of people who don't have enough of an incentive earning over £50k because they know 40% over this amount goes to HMRC.

I think people who think like this don't deserve to make any more money

I also think wages much over this are largely decoupled from actual ability anyway

gamerforever wrote:I know of people who don't have enough of an incentive earning over £50k because they know 40% over this amount goes to HMRC. It is a barrier to wanting to strive for better things in life in my opinion. Ok I live in London, so I guess I would say that you need to earn £250k pa to be rich, but I stand by my point on the world wanting everyone to be at a similar level apart from the top few.

What considerably better things in life does £70,000 a year give you over £50,000 at the same tax rates? You do not need to be in the top 1% of earners to be rich in London. At all. The average income in the capital is just shy of £40k.

OrangeRKN wrote:

gamerforever wrote:I know of people who don't have enough of an incentive earning over £50k because they know 40% over this amount goes to HMRC.

I think people who think like this don't deserve to make any more money

I also think wages much over this are largely decoupled from actual ability anyway

Generally agree.

gamerforever wrote:Labour want to give 6% of peoples wealth away every year, but thats another discussion. Shocking.

Do you realise how entitled you sound?

You understand that your 'wealth' is not your own creation, right? Your earnings are not the result of some omnipresent compensation scheme that determines worth based on your value. You don't get paid the amount you do because you've earned it. You do understand this, right?

Your 'friends' who lack 'incentive' to earn more because they know the extra they could earn will be taxed are awful, awful people who clearly don't understand their own privilege. So you've got a good education and a good job. It still doesn't mean you earned your spot though. Your entitled position was only made possible because of society. You didn't choose your education. You are a product of your environment. Taxation allows for the maintenance of that environment, so that both you and others can continue to prosper.

To be clear: society has gone on for centuries before you and will continue for centuries without you. In that time, as a collective, people built towns and cities. Society ensures an income to the people who would be your customers and a safe road for them to drive along as they head your way. Society builds the schools and supplies the teachers that make sure you get the grades you need for your career. This wasn't a sole endeavour; you were afforded this life because of the work of millions of others.

If your actual, honest thinking is "I earned this money, why should I have to pay tax?" then you need to reset your thinking. It's acceptable to think that way, but only if you live in a house that you built yourself, wired yourself, connected to water and sewerage yourself. You then need to drive to work in a car that you built yourself (and taught yourself to drive) powered on fuel and oil that you yourself obtained at the source. Along vast highways you knocked together in your spare time, you then make the journey to your place of work, an office building that you yourself erected (one for the no context thread), where you greet the customers who were driven to your business through the traffic created via that internet that you cobbled together in your spare time. Then, and only then, can you legitimately believe "my income is earned solely for me through my own deeds; I have no obligation to others".

Until that time, if you're wealthy enough, you contribute to the enrichment of society for others, because it too enables you to live within it.

This is some really basic stuff: we teach children at nursery school that sharing is important. Why do some people forget that as soon as they learn what cash is?

gamerforever wrote:why should you pay double the amount of tax on earnings above a certain level if you have earned it? How can anyone say that you have worked less hard to earn between £50,000 and £100,000 that between £0 and £50,000?

Why shouldn’t you pay more?

I don’t think anybody thinks you necessarily work less hard to earn between £50k-£100k but the very fact you have so much more money means you should contribute more. Why? Because you can afford to.

Do you think somebody working a minimum wage job works less hard? A building site labourer from a poor background works far harder than the investment banker whose family paid for a private education and set him up with a large nest egg.

You know that whole mantra of a team only being as strong as its weakest link? That also applies to society, gamerforever. Perhaps you should ponder that instead of worrying about losing a few quid.

Broken down into chunks because it's just easier.

gamerforever wrote:What a load of crap - we should all pay tax. There's too many people not paying taxes which is why we all need to suffer, that is the reality of the situation.

I don't understand this. Why do we all need to suffer? What point are you making here?

gamerforever wrote:People who earn more have generally worked very, very hard to get to that position. It doesn't come just like that. Yes, people who come from more priveleged backgrounds have an easier path, but they still need to work hard.

You're wrong, and if you don't understand why, you don't understand privilege.

Someone from a very poor background, with disinterested poor parents and a poor quality school, could work as hard as they possibly can at school and still not get many qualifications. They could then work 80 hours a week at a cleaning job and they'd never climb the socio-economic ladder. So this idea that hard work and high pay are linked is completely incorrect.

Yes, some people earn a lot of money because they've worked very hard.

But what is the quantifier of 'hard work'? Is it the objective difficulty of the tasks you face? Number of hours you put in? Unpleasant nature of the work itself?

Your point about people in privileged positions 'still needing to work hard' is precisely the kind of ignorance I'm talking about - they absolutely don't have to work as hard. There are lots of privileges that successful people might not even realise they have. If you have an executive job, then yes you might have a great education, but that's because you were lucky enough to be born to parents who for whatever reason could or wanted to make that possible. You might have studied to get good grades but is that really "working hard" when in reality you're lucky to be in that position and it's not exactly unpleasant. You might have put in the hours in your job but your job is in a nice, welcoming, comfortable office where you're motivated by bonuses and additional perks. You might have aced the interview but you were always more likely to do so because the panel simply liked you better because they "see themselves in you".

gamerforever wrote:Everyone needs someone in life

That's nice.

gamerforever wrote:but to state that we haven't earned the money is just stupid. That's a very negative way of looking at things and just outlines that you basically think people who do well in life don't deserve to or are lucky.

Well, I think it's fair to say that those at the very top don't deserve their excessive wealth, and they certainly don't need it. I don't think you can make the argument that those who earn let's say 100k a year work ten times harder than someone on 10k a year. There's absolutely no proof in that. The factors are your relative worth to your employer and how profitable your skillset or industry is. And my point about your earnings not being entirely earned by you is the point that you didn't do all of it by yourself; you were enabled to do it by a society that allows for people with your combined circumstances to prosper. If you'd have been born in Uruguay or Nigeria or South Korea you would not have ended up in the same salary scale. That seems obvious, right? So why then is it not obvious that the combined social, societal and economic circumstances surrounding your upbringing in the UK are the very things that have allowed you to become what you are? And that therefore, if your society allows you to grow rich, it's only right that you contribute more than others to its upkeep, because it's allowed you to become more wealthy than others?

gamerforever wrote:Back to the tax situation, why should you pay double the amount of tax on earnings above a certain level if you have earned it? How can anyone say that you have worked less hard to earn between £50,000 and £100,000 that between £0 and £50,000?

As I said above: the factors are your relative worth to your employer and how profitable your skillset or industry is. Work eighty hours cleaning toilets one week then eighty hours in a commercial banking environment, and then come and tell me which was "less hard".

gamerforever wrote:The problem is the world wants us to limit our self belief so that we stay in the ground, which is much easier to control.

This sounds like unfounded nonsense.

gamerforever wrote:Sharing and helping is great, but nothing to do with how we should be taxed. That's more to do with someones character.

That's your opinion (and it sounds like one you've conveniently cobbled together because you don't fancy paying your fair share).

Fair enough if you don't want to contribute your appropriate amount to the upkeep of society. But next time you feel ill, don't drive to the hospital on roads I've paid for, because I didn't want to pay my tax so that you should use it. Take a private road. And you better go to a private hospital, because the doctors at the public one I helped pay for don't want to share their expert knowledge with you. After all, sharing and helping is great, but it's nothing to do with how our society should work. That's more to do with someones character.

Funnily enough my tax paid has also gone towards the hospitals, so why shouldn't I use the NHS?

What you don't seem to grasp is that I believe paying tax is right, what I do not agree with is simply loading more taxes on to people who earn more especially when there are people not even paying tax.

There's no point continuing to argue my point as every one has their own beliefs and own experiences, which is fair enough.

I've seen plenty of people come from poor backgrounds and do really well in life, so do not think its impossible to achieve something. It is a limiting way of thinking in my opinion and is the reason why people give up and accept their situation.

gamerforever wrote:What you don't seem to grasp is that I believe paying tax is right, what I do not agree with is simply loading more taxes on to people who earn more especially when there are people not even paying tax.

As you earn more, you pay more. It’s a simple concept that works pretty well. High earners might not like it, but morally it is right that the “burden” of paying for the state (NHS, police, fire, defence etc etc) should fall more on the wealthy than the poor.

By people not even paying tax, do you mean really low earners, or wealthy people that avoid tax? The first group shouldn’t pay tax because they cannot afford to. The second group I would agree should be paying tax and we should find ways to ensure they do.

I've seen plenty of people come from poor backgrounds and do really well in life, so do not think its impossible to achieve something. It is a limiting way of thinking in my opinion and is the reason why people give up and accept their situation.

Of course some people manage to break away from poverty and raise themselves up. It is not typical though is it? Generally speaking if you are born into a high crime and poverty stricken area you are unlikely to do well. If you are raised by uncaring drug addled parent(s) then you are unlikely to do well. If you are born into the landed gentry, attend Eton, go on to Oxford, before being offered a job in the City by daddy’s old school friend, then you will probably end up earning large amounts of money.

Good to see the meritocracy is alive and well.

I'm pretty certain that people on minimum wage jobs in Amazon warehouses work way harder than I do, on longer and less desirable hours, for significantly less pay.

I would love to live in this fair and just meritocracy you imagine the world to be gamerforever, but it's simply untrue.

Of course we haven't even touched on the disadvantages faced by women and minorities compared to white men....

Tafdolphin wrote:Of course we haven't even touched on the disadvantages faced by women and minorities compared to white men...

“They just have to work as hard as me!”

Moggy's nailed it.

I'm off to tell the wife.

Tafdolphin wrote:Moggy's told it.

I'm off to nail the wife.

The whole concept of meritocracy is a load of bollocks. "Hard work" isn't a virtue, it's bourgeois bullshit.

OrangeRKN wrote:I'm pretty certain that people on minimum wage jobs in Amazon warehouses work way harder than I do, on longer and less desirable hours, for significantly less pay.

I would love to live in this fair and just meritocracy you imagine the world to be gamerforever, but it's simply untrue.

I wouldn't, I'd be getting paid far less. #stealingaliving.

Karl_ wrote:The whole concept of meritocracy is a load of bollocks. "Hard work" isn't a virtue, it's bourgeois bullshit.

A meritocracy would be great*. But it’ll never happen as we’re never going to pay hard workers more than we pay lazy accountants.

*not for me personally because I’m lazy.

Moggy wrote:

Karl_ wrote:The whole concept of meritocracy is a load of bollocks. "Hard work" isn't a virtue, it's bourgeois bullshit.

A meritocracy would be great*. But it’ll never happen as we’re never going to pay hard workers more than we pay lazy accountants.

*not for me personally because I’m lazy.

Why should an economic hierarchy exist between "more useful" and "less useful" people? It would be better than our current plutocracy, sure, but I don't think anyone should be vastly wealthy even if they are very smart, or very poor even if they are really lazy.