Col you claim I am on an "envy-platform" apart from being a cheap shot I have not given any indication of envying anyone for the specious reason of wealth.

Therefore, do not judge me by your superficial values - you are the braggart after all - if you did not believe that money is so important you would not have made the claims you did.

The people I do envy are those with the moral fortitude to work in places like E Timor, Afganistan and other sad places in the world. I do my bit with volunteer work here at home but am aware of my limitations. However, by posting on forums like OLO to discuss more equitable distribution of wealth is another way of participating in our society and may be even making a difference to someone.

Yabby - I posted figures for Welfare fraud - they amount to about 10% of those claiming welfare, if that. Our economy is under more threat from corporate greed and corruption than some pathetic dole bludgers. Also the subsidies provided by government to corporations far exceeds the welfare budget (be interesting to see how much the nuclear industry will be subsidised for example).

I have paid pay taxes all my life and am grateful that the welfare safety net has been there when I needed it. Tristan does not sound at all greedy he is simply looking for more equitable ways for people to get on their own feet and become self-reliant.

GT - the redistribution of wealth (my past claim for welfare) has assisted me until I could find work again. I am now able to contribute by way of spending and taxes to the economy. I think maybe Economics 101 would help you to understand.

Tao

Let’s put it this way,

I will happily continue in my “wayward” way, voting according to my conscience and against the evils of socialist control.

I will pursue and promote the values and ethics which I have found successful and thus adopted, regardless of your take on them.

I will exercise my democratic right to accumulate wealth, pay taxes and exercise patronage, altruism and compassion in the directions and causes which suit my desires and pull at my heart, without some trumped up, tin-pot bureaucrat telling me who, what and how I should deploy my discretionary income.

I will be happy, when I eventually shuffle off this mortal husk knowing, I lived my life honourably, honestly and I brought children into the world to teach in the tried and tested values of self-reliance and responsibility, with which they will enrich the general population by not being a drain on it.

You on the other hand, reduced to patronising sneers, can play socialist mind games with yourself and cry into your half-a-lager on a Saturday night (as far as the pension stretches) when you realise, too late, that your theories are just so much dust and your co-dependent existence might as well have never happened.

Scout
If you do not envy, why do you desire to control the actions of strangers by imposing punitive tax laws upon them?
Then again, maybe “envy” is wrong, "co-dependency" is about control and manipulation, maybe that is where you are really coming from.

GT Good points – The “state” is the most inefficient model for service delivery of any sort, be it education, health or Industrial and commercial indulgences like Banking and Airlines.
Governments suffer a lack of incentive and prudence when compared to that exercised by people who are spending their own hard earned money and resources

"Also the subsidies provided by government to corporations far exceeds the welfare budget"

Scout, the welfare budget is 90 billion$, so somehow I think you
have your facts wrong there. Meantime personally I think that
corportations should paddle their own canoes too, just like the
rest of us.

Govts would have no idea what % of welfare fraud exists, as
many on disability pensions, with so called bad backs, seem to be able to do all sorts of other work, cash jobs etc, yet still claim
pensions. Clearly they are not part of the fraud statistics.

We agree to disagree about Tristan's attitude, which IMHO he made quite clear, along with his political agenda.

GT

My point initially, was that no-one is able to sustain their life without relying upon the efforts of others, which you have reasonably acknowledged. Previous posters had used the term self-reliance so I was quite justified in exposing the assumptions underlying its use. It was not me who was confused by the concept, but others. You may call what I have done exploiting, I call it clarifying. That clarification has now led you to reconsider the term and present a (perhaps) more fitting description of what you (and others) are attempting to convey. However, once the term is exposed as furphy, most who use it are generally reduced to immature irrationalities and personal justifications, as is evidenced by Col.

Although you all seem to be aware of the repercussions of my point (particularly if people seriously consider the implications), I have not advocated or justified anything. I have simply negated, or shown to be false, a fundamental premise upon which a certain belief system rests. Why do I need to have any other point?

My comments regarding negative-gearing were primarily to illustrate the fact that the despite similar assumptions that people who engage in negative gearing are being nobly “self-reliant”, they are in fact reliant on others.

However, people who use negative-gearing do not only rely on taxation laws (or lack thereof as you suggest), they rely on all other laws which exist to enable and protect the appropriation of land and accumulation of wealth. Those laws are administered by the state apparatus which, if ultimately the laws are not obeyed (by say, the great unwashed), will resort to outright violence to enforce them (police, military etc.). If the laws and apparatus of the state (together with the brain-numbing ideology) did not exist I dare say the propertyless would have no hesitation in re-distributing that property and wealth in a far more equitable manner. It is the wealthy who rely on the state for far more than the average person. No taxes and no state would mean no police - the wealthy would be very vulnerable indeed.

Cont...

You wrote: “Redistribution-of-wealth-is-completely-unethical-as-it-requires-great-coercion-to-pry-peacefully-aquired-property-out-of-the-hands-of-another,-and-if-it-must-be-done-then-it-may-only-be-justified-when-done-to-protect-every-individual's-natural-right-to-freedom-and-property,-and-certainly-not-to-impose-some-idealistic-subjective-fantasy-on-everyone.” Quite right GT.

We should consider what you mean by peacefully acquired property. In this country in particular, and in most other countries, the transition to private property was anything but peaceful and did in fact require great coercion – violent coercion. Not only that, it denied the “natural right to freedom and property” for the original inhabitants of this land. Not only that, it denied many of them their right to life. That redistribution of wealth was completely unethical, and justified by an idealistic subjective fantasy imposed on others.

You said: “the-"fruits-of-our-labour"-belong-to-whichever-individuals-laboured-to-obtain-them,-not-to-society-as-a-whole.-Neither-you-nor-anybody-else-is-entitled-to-the-wealth-created-by-another,-just-as-nobody-but-you-is-entitled-to-your-wealth.” Almost right GT

Firstly, who is deciding that “fruits-of-our-labour” do not belong to “society-as-a-whole? Is that just your opinion, or is it a fact? If the majority decide that the fruits of their labour do belong to society as a whole, what is the fact?

If “neither-you-nor-anybody-else-is-entitled-to-the-wealth-created-by-another” and “the-"fruits-of-our-labour"-belong-to-whichever-individuals-laboured-to-obtain-them”, why is it that 5% of people own 95% of the wealth? 5% of people surely can’t have done enough labour to produce 95% of the wealth. Of course, you said “obtain” not “produce”. There is probably a distinction. Anyway, I’ll be interested to read your explanation.

Now, not that I’m really interested in defending welfare state taxation regimes, it should be pointed out that what you call the coerced redistribution of wealth (taxes) has in reality only given working people back some of the wealth they have produced which has been, and still is, coercively taken from them. This was done, not for some bleeding heart lefty reason, but precisely because states (and the wealthy people they protected) all over the world were in danger of being overthrown by the very people who created the wealth (if you don’t believe me read some history). It was a very pragmatic decision, made to protect the “rights” of the wealthy to “freedom and property”. A decision which is now being reversed.

The state exists to police inequality

Tao “The state exists to police inequality”

Define “inequality”

Is “equality” when people are given “Opportunity” “Equally”?

Is “inequality” when some choose to live in remote areas, away from services and others decide to move to live near services?

When people are made aware of what services are available and where they are located should they be responsible for getting to them themselves?

If we supply services to those who are distant, what “equality” of delivery is there for those who inconvenience themselves to live nearer?

What about those who squander the “opportunity for equality” and the improvements it would bring by following short term gaols and immediate gratification of wants versus the prudent and thrifty attitudes of those who curtail immediate gratification of wants to consider their resources in harder times?

Should we discourage football and swimming stars because of their “unequal” ability in their chosen fields of endeavour?

As dear Margaret Wrote

“Let our children grow tall, and some taller than others if they have it in them to do so.”

So “The state exists to police inequality”

The Hell it does,

If growing “tall” “disadvantages” the vertically challenged, how should government “police” that inequality, cut the feet off the tall?

The “state” exists to serve the wishes of the population.

It has not and should not be the arbiter of “equality” because such “power” should never, ever, be vested in any institution, when it would only be used to curtail the liberty of the members of the population it is appointed to serve.