charity

One of the most common points of disagreement between, let's call them "state-interventionists" and "non-interventionists", is the claim that "non-interventionism" would leave the poorest in society on the scrap heap with no welfare, no support. That the much vaunted idea of "non-interventionists" that "private charity" or "voluntary co-operation" would take the place of state welfare is just an impossible pipe dream. So determinedly do "state-interventionists" believe their own claims that they frequently castigate "non-interventionists" as heartless uncaring selfish individualists who would rather see others die than pay taxes. One quote from a Lib Dem Voice "discussion" just today will give you the general idea:

"Well none of them [Libertarians] are serious, because it an incoherent philosophy....send the kids back down the mines, it’s only a lifestyle choice."

And to an extent, I used to believe that propaganda. As a geo-libertarian of course I do have an answer of sorts - the basic income derived from land user fees (which would on their own create an almost unimaginably more equitable society in any case) would cover the basics of life for everyone, and give everyone an incentive to top it up with as much or as little work as they can manage.

But a recent discussion on a "non-interventionist" mailing list I've been frequenting recently has challenged the basic assumption of this debate for me. Would people really not contribute voluntarily to the upkeep of others if you don't have a government apparatus threatening them with the confiscation of their property and ultimately the loss of their freedom unless they pay their taxes?

It is a strange proposition. Governments for at least the last sixty years have been supporters at some level or another of some form of state welfare. They may argue about how much is appropriate but the fact is, people have overwhelmingly voted for a state that takes money from you in order to give some of what's yours to someone deemed "less fortunate". We even have a cliche about the inevitability of death, and taxes.

We have tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who do voluntarily give up their time to care for another. Most people are someone's relative, someone's friend, someone's colleague. And whilst I recognize that some do not have such support networks and would still require some form of collective support, most people do not want to see their friends and relatives on skid row or worse.

One has to wonder whether the interventionist route actually makes things worse. And in how many ways. When we look at our pay packets do we not think often that we've given quite enough for the support of others through our taxes thank you very much. National Insurance and Income Tax between them effectively make the worker near forty per cent worse off. I know what I would do with an extra forty per cent each month. It would pay the interest bill on the piece of land we have just acquired for our first Community Land Trust for a start.

Other taxes and protectionist policies keep the prices we pay for basics artificially high and create incentives for companies to produce cash cows rather than exciting developments. I'll bet if we didn't guarantee one pharmaceutical company a contract for however many millions of doses of Metformin diabetes pills every year a dozen others would have put the effort in to find a cure, not a chronic treatment regime.

The attempt to do welfare as a "universal" system, with the same rules for everyone, means a bloated bureaucracy enforcing inflexible regulations. If welfare were, say, to be dealt with at the parish level, and the barriers to job creation caused by taxes eradicated, I'll bet you more people would be found some work, appropriate to their abilities, even if it didn't give them everything they need and then people would feel much better about helping them out with the rest - because they were trying to help themselves as best they could. We have no way of measuring that at a national level really.

We have a Professor here at Brookes, a chap called Steven King. His area is the History of Welfare mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries - probably the period which received wisdom says was the harshest environment if you were poor or hapless. But I was fascinated by a lecture he gave a couple of years ago on being elevated to the professoriate (you are elevated to that aren't you?). Apparently when parishes were responsible for pensions, those who actually got a pension - those whom their own peers and neighbours if you like knew had simply tried and been unable to support themselves (in common parlance I guess the "deserving poor") would get on average 75% of the average working wage for their area. For others there were varying levels of support down to a pretty basic safety net that was intended to be subsistence rather than comfortable for those they felt were "swinging the lead".

And then there's the problem of administrative costs. If I had an extra 40% in my pay packet and was going to give it away, I'd know that the people or organizations I was giving it to would get all of my donation. I'll bet for the 40% the state apparatus take off me in taxes, probably half actually gets to someone who needs it, to direct service delivery, if that.

So, given all those disadvantages of, and the singular advantage that people actually vote for, this tax based welfare system at some level or another, is it not just possible that by doing away with all that coercion, all that centralization, all that unproductive bureaucracy, the people who get to keep what they earn would be quite proud to "do the right thing" by their neighbours and communities? If they vote at the ballot box to have money taken off them by the state for things they obviously believe are necessary, would they suddenly feel they were not necessary or that they should not contribute towards those same things without the threats of the state?  Isn't that a totally illogical position?  You'd vote for it but not do it if the people you vote for didn't force you to do it?

And so, at the very least, would it not be at least a courtesy to accept that Libertarianism is an optimistic creed; that it is positive about humanity's innate ability and even need to help each other. You may call that a naive optimism. But I'd rather be a glass half full freedom lover than the glass half empty authoritarian approach that says humanity will not help itself unless it is forced to do so by the agents of a state apparatus that may, just may, cause more problems than it actually solves. Libertarian is not a "devil may care/beggar thy neighbour" philosophy but one that places the utmost faith in people, as individuals, to know and do what is right.

And as to whether it is a "coherent philosophy" or not, I submit that "non-interventionism" is the only truly coherent philosophy in the game. For once you admit the state can do one thing better than we can through voluntary co-operation, you inevitably end up in endless arguments between factions about just how much the state can do better, and the ultimate end of that arms race is totalitarianism - that the state can do everything better than voluntary co-operation. Which is manifestly not true.

Anyone who's read any of my blog will know of the work I do on affordable housing through Oxfordshire Community Land Trust in my spare time. After five years of work, persuasion, lobbying, all for nothing, we have the opportunity, thanks to a very generous elderly lady who has settled all she wants to on her children is willing to swap us her house and its plot in return for about half its value and a smaller home carved out of half her existing cottage so we can at last get a site on which to develop a few affordable houses and prove the concept to the communities of Oxfordshire who would like to be able to do similar.

The trouble is that to be viable we have had to buy about half each of the two neighbouring gardens and are likely to try and get another adjacent one. And so, with the efforts of a very energetic fellow board member's contacts in the Society of Friends we have raised a decent chunk of this. Nevertheless we still have to fund the borrowing on about £170,000 worth of loans starting from the end of May when we are due to complete on the first two slices of adjoining land.

Anyway, it works out that in the worst case we probably need to fund interest payments of around £1000 per month until we either get planning consent and can realistically borrow against the land to develop or till we can raise the remainder as gifts and pay off the loan that way, whichever is the sooner.

So we have a variety of ideas about how to scrape together this sum, one of which is a commitment by me that, if in May I were to find myself in receipt of a small additional income, say from a councillor's allowance, the 90% of that I am not already committed to giving to the party to help me pay for Focus leaflets and campaigning in the ward will go to the charitable associate of OCLT, the Stonesfield Community Trust that is fronting our land purchase, to help pay that interest bill.

So, not only do I now have to win for Headington Hill and Northway, its residents, this and next year's new students, freedom and the Liberal Democrats, but also for OCLT and affordable housing in Oxfordshire!

Mad eh? We'll, we've got to pay for it somehow to prove the whole idea to skeptical councillors, the media and bureaucrats? What better a way if it works out right? I am standing in this election at least partly to promote my ideas for innovative financing of things like affordable housing. I'm sure there's not a household in the ward doesn't feel or understand the effects of the gross deficiency we have in Oxford and Oxfordshire of that.

I'm sure there are probably a good few people rubbing their hands with some relish at the thought that private schools might feel the squeeze from this edict from the Charities Commission that they have to prove the value of their contribution to the wider community to retain their charitable status.

But before they get too excited, perhaps they might want to think about the numbers. I read that independent schools have about 600,000 pupils. If we accept the figures put forward by Nick Clegg, I think, when he was talking about the "pupil premium" in which he said, if memory serves, that the average cost was about £9,000 per year per pupil - which allowing for endowments and so on is probably a bit more than the average fees - it is an "industry" with a turnover of nearly £5.5 billion per year.

The statements about the level of charitable benefit they receive suggest that it amounts to about £100 million. This is therefore just under 2% of their combined turnover. Hardly insurmountable if they decide to stick two fingers up to the Charities Commission. But there's another side to it, isn't there. If we accept government figures that they spend about £6,000 per year on average on each state school pupil, then the 600,000 pupils whose parents are often scrimping and saving to put them through a private school are saving the state sector just over £3.5 billion.

It seems to me that whatever you think of private education, the charge that they do not contribute financially to the state sector through their customers' taxation cannot be upheld. Of course, since most of the charitable benefit is presumably in the form of reclamation of VAT on some expenses and I would argue that nobody should pay VAT, the most iniquitous tax on production we have, they would not have such a benefit in my fiscal regime anyway!