Semi-Partisan Politics

 

Imagine an economy that gives everyone their fair share.

That’s what the Green Party website asks us to do, as they pitch their alternative, brave new world to the British electorate.

Put aside the fact that the very idea of a “fair share” is completely meaningless, rendering itself open to redefinition and misuse in any number of ways. What matters is that the Green Party views the economy not as a diverse group of individuals with their own talents, skills and interests, but as a monolothic entity entirely separate from the people, a money-making machine to be cranked up and raided at will in order to fund the social objective of the day.

When you view the economy in this way, it’s natural to see the people who produce and contribute most to the “economy machine” as nothing more than resources to be raided and exploited for the greater good, not as human beings with their own hopes and dreams (and the ability to pick up sticks and move elsewhere if they find themselves being bullied by Big Government).

And it is partly this toxic mindset which drives the Green Party to propose a new 60% top rate of income tax, not just for the yacht-owning super-rich elite but on anybody earning over £150,000 per year.

From the BBC’s report:

The Green Party has announced it would put up the top rate of tax to 60p in the pound.

Party leader Natalie Bennett claimed the move would bring in an extra £2 billion a year for public services.

She said the Greens would like to see a “ten to one ratio between the top paid and lowest paid”.

Not contenting themselves with confiscatory rates of income tax, the Green Party also propose stealing peoples’ hard-earned wealth, which has of course already been taxed at the point it was created (and, in the case of inheritance tax, passed down the generations):

The Greens have also proposed a “wealth tax” which would be 2% a year levied on people with assets of more than £3m which, Ms Bennett claimed, could bring in £25bn a year “by the end of the Parliament”.

What’s most striking here is the complete lack of gratitude shown by the Green Party toward those who already contribute the most to the UK’s coffers. There is simply no acceptance that the wealthy may fairly earn or deserve their high incomes, and no acknowledgement that they already contribute so much (often in excess of 50% once income tax, national insurance, VAT and the various stealth taxes are taken into account) for the good of society.

New factories opened, new jobs created, innovative new products offered, our whole way of life revolutionised – these private sector achievements count for nothing in the eyes of the Green Party, because anyone so careless as to make money in modern Britain must have stolen their bread from the mouth of somebody less fortunate. There is simply no other explanation, as far as Natalie Bennett is concerned. And still Green Party supporters accuse UKIP and the Conservatives of seeking to divide us, scapegoating certain groups and playing one group off against another!

According to the Natalie Bennett worldview, not only are Britain’s top entrepreneurs, managers, inventors, scientists, artists and academics completely undeserving of any thanks whatsoever for the high taxes they contribute to the exchequer, we should actively despise them and demand that they sacrifice even more in order to forcibly bring about the more equal society.

While some conservative voices in the United States go too far in their effusive praise of the entrepreneur and the small business owner, the Green Party suffers from the polar opposite problem, completely failing to acknowledge the financial and social contributions already paid by the rich, while smearing them with the “greed and fraud” of a small minority (the rich are all “bankers”, according to the Green Party).

But interestingly, even the Green Party do not expect the tax measures to raise any significant revenue – a paltry £2bn by their own predictions. And yet the Greens press ahead with the policy regardless, because in truth it is not all about raising revenue to fund public services. It is also about punishing some Britons for daring to be too successful.

From the Telegraph:

She said the tax hike would raise about £2 billion a year but was primarily intended to address the “huge and rising problem” of inequality in society.

“We think… there’s been an undue focus on the deficit and less of the thought, consideration of the kind of society that we need to have,” she said.

The Green Party said it intended the tax rate to “act as a disincentive to companies paying excessively high salaries”.

This is the true politics of envy – attempting to reduce inequality not by seeking to build up the poor and disadvantaged, but by tearing down the rich and successful, snarling all the while about how much the fortunate have “taken” from society. And what does Natalie Bennett think highly-paid, highly mobile individuals will do when their employers are heavily disincentivised from paying high salaries in Britain? Sigh deeply and accept their newfound status as the nation’s bottomless piggy bank?

It is easy to scapegoat the wealthy as the source of all Britain’s ills (just as left-wingers believe UKIP scapegoat immigrants), but the Green Party’s latest announcement is both intellectually lazy and profoundly insulting to the many incredibly hard-working people who combine their life circumstances (privileged or not) with natural talent and lashings of hard work, to achieve success.

Putting aside the contentious and separate issue of non-doms, most highly paid Brits quietly go about their work while contributing the lion’s share of taxes with very little complaint. And yet the council picks up their rubbish once a week (if they are lucky), just like it does for you and me. The fire brigade and ambulance service respond to their 999 calls with the same urgency that they respond to ours, no faster. And should a Knightsbridge millionaire fall sick and choose to receive treatment from the NHS that they pay for, they will be treated no differently than an unemployed serial father of 40 from Wales.

But this is not enough for Natalie Bennett and the Green Party. No, Britain’s highest taxpayers should feel ashamed of their success and surrender well over half of their income to the state in penance for having dared to climb too high and achieve too much.

And if we provoke a new brain drain, smother investment and wreck the British economy in the process, hurting everyone, who cares? The important thing is that we will have taught those rich bastards a lesson.

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world…