Published on 12, July, 2020
Why do so many people have a sense of entitlement?
I was discussing this with a friend at the weekend and we couldn't really get to the bottom of it, other than perhaps it's just been a slow erosion of society and work ethic.
They don't work, but are entitled to (net) taxpayers money, so they can have things that taxpayers can't afford, to live in areas that those taxpayers can't afford, to have holidays, to not work a job they don't want to, to be entitled to an easy and well paid job. That they have "rights" that must be treated as gospel, but not any responsibilities that are tied to those rights. That rules are just for "someone else", a whole attitude that everyone else owes them a living etc.
What is the flawed mental process where people decide that they are entitled to things just because they want them? How can anyone even attempt to justify that "want" means "entitled"?
Well Matt, what kinds of individuals do you have in mind? Who feels entitled? What is your experience in these things?
The charter of human rights does state clearly that having the right to work and not be enslaved, to live your life without harassment are rights, not entitlements.
I have read that many people are now dying in the UK because the central government was so anti welfare for both the sick and the unemployed.
Please clarify a little bit where you are coming from
It's a whole range of people, from people who feel entitled to a life on benefits, people who feel entitled to cut in front of people in queues, or in traffic etc.
So many who can work, but choose not to (which is different to people who can't work) feel they have a "right" to benefits, which is effectively taking the money of taxpayers, or to housing benefit, or tax credits etc. Topping up their income so that someone on £20k pa can live in Westminster, Chiswick, Kensington etc. when the majority of net taxpayers couldn't afford to live in those areas.
People who complain that they shouldn't have to work because all the jobs are "low paid" and they want an easy well paid job etc. The right in the UDHR isn't that people are entitled to a well paid easy job, it's not that they are even entitled to a job:
Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
It's effectively saying that they can't be enslaved, nor can they be exploited or sacked unfairly, but it doesn't give them any entitlement to a specific job or level of remuneration.
There are issues with our welfare system, but I think a lot of that comes from the ways it's been abused. For example I have a friend (and he's fallen out with most of his friends because if this) who has a girlfriend who doesn't work, she's not worked since she was 19 and she's now nearly 40, in that time she's claimed for various disabilities (mostly revolving around severe back pain, which she has even admitted in front of us is made up so she doesn't have to work), she's had a house provided for her, a car provided for her (and was complaining that under PIP they took the car off her and she "had to pay for her own" which is insane, because it's not her paying even now), goes on holiday abroad at least two times a year, has three kids by three different men which gets her more benefits, never seems short of money etc. When the rest of us have met her she feels completely entitled to live off of taxpayers. She's on forums etc of people who discuss how to lie about medical problems in a totally believable way, what symptoms to claim, what reactions to being examined in a certain way etc so that they can be believable.
Even on here some people feel incredibly entitled to benefits saying that they can work, but don't like it, find it stressful etc, whilst there are others who solider on stoically and work even though they don't like it and find it difficult but want to provide for themselves. I have a friend who was a carpenter, but was paralysed from the waist down in an car accident. He didn't decide to just do nothing with the rest of his life but retrained as a software engineer, he didn't feel entitled to live off taxpayers for the rest of his life.
I work hard, I work smart and I pay a hell of a lot of tax (for the 17/18 tax year probably near £40k)
The question I would like to know is what size salary do you have and how much do you really think that you need to live a comfortable lifestyle? If you are paying £40k in income tax then that's more than what the average person earns each year before income tax is taken off.
Does anybody have a sense of entitlement to earn over £100k a year on the basis that they work hard or work smart then moan at having to give £40k to the taxman leaving them with more than double what the average person earns each year after they have paid their income tax?
I have a friend who was a carpenter, but was paralysed from the waist down in an car accident. He didn't decide to just do nothing with the rest of his life but retrained as a software engineer, he didn't feel entitled to live off taxpayers for the rest of his life.
That might just be a rare and lucky instance...
I'm aware of a software engineer who could not find employment as a software engineer that was told by the Job Centre to retrain as a bricklayer. The advisor was not aware that his uncle was a bricklayer who could not find employment as a bricklayer in the 1980s and was told by the Job Centre to retrain in computers.
Retraining is fraught with complications. It's actually quite a big challenge to retrain as both a software engineer or a bricklayer after the age of 40. Another factor is that most bricklayers are good with their hands but not good with their brains and most software engineers are good with their brains and not good with their hands.
Retraining also takes time and money whilst the individual might have bills to pay and a family to support.
The rise of in work benefits and associated housing benefit has been a major issue. It has been partially responsible for driving up housing prices, it's caused people to live in areas that they can't afford to, so further driving up house prices in London and the South East especially where as without the levels of housing benefit and in work benefit those people wouldn't live as close to London, so averaging out prices better across the country etc.
There are a multitude of factors responsible for driving up house prices including mass immigration, Agreed Shorthold Tenancy (which is what revived private renting and sparked off the BTL craze), and easy money in the form of BTL mortgages. In fact the people who really benefit from housing benefit are landlords and BTL investors. People who claim housing benefits are just a downtrodden intermediary as billions of pounds of taxpayer's money line the coffers of landlords and fuel BTL empires. Banks are also making billions from interest charges on mortgages. I was the previous Conservative government which planted the seeds for the mess that the housing market is in with the Housing Act, Maastricht Treaty etc. The Labour government in 1997 could have taken action to stop skyrocketing house prices and the BTL craze before they started as well as prevented mass immigration from eastern Europe but they chose not to.
Also take into account that millions of people face a stark choice between being unemployed in an area with cheap housing or getting a job in an area with expensive housing. People generally tend to move to where the jobs are. London and the South East is where the bulk of investment and job creation takes place whilst in other parts of the country there are naff all jobs and naff all investment.
Countless people in work are financially worse off than unemployed but it's not that unemployment benefits are too high. Salaries are too low and living costs too high.
MattBucks
I work very hard too, have done for over 20 years now. Often pretty thankless work too, for little pay and high taxes. For which we see little return, there is a lot of corruption in the country I live in.
Low taxes is part of how austerity works. As for Labour, as far as I remember, it was Blair who introduced Workfare in the UK!
nexus9 said:Independence can be a sterling quality Matt. But I do wonder when it becomes looking for others to censure others who get help whether there isn't some kind of resentment for those who appear to have it easier.
It's not others who appear to have it easier, but who actually have it easier. The rise of in work benefits and associated housing benefit has been a major issue. It has been partially responsible for driving up housing prices, it's caused people to live in areas that they can't afford to, so further driving up house prices in London and the South East especially where as without the levels of housing benefit and in work benefit those people wouldn't live as close to London, so averaging out prices better across the country etc.
I work hard, I work smart and I pay a hell of a lot of tax (for the 17/18 tax year probably near £40k) yet I'm constantly told by Labour and in the newspapers that I should pay more income tax, that my companies should have to pay higher corporation tax etc. because some people want more. I have no problem with paying in to help those who need genuine help themselves, the disabled and sick especially should have their benefits raised substantially but I want to see it targeted at those in genuine need rather than just scattered around to those who don't need it as electoral bribes. I'd even like to see wages rise in the NHS, other emergency services, armed forces, teachers etc and I'm willing to pay for that but it has to be more universal. We're already one of the lowest taxed major economies and the bottom three centiles pay significantly less than they would in any other major EU country, whilst the upper two pay roughly they same as they would in most of the EU (Germany or France for example).
The problem is our tax system was lowered by the Conservatives to buy votes, and Labour upped benefits to buy votes, we have the worst of both worlds.
I think certain kinds of politician use this dislike of whom so-called hard-working taxpayers called scroungers to deflect attention away from some of the most egregious inequalities in too many rich Western countries.
You can be exploited or low paid, or be in recipient of benefits. Your children now have not just their free milk snatched away but their school dinners too.
Isn't it interesting though that politicians do not apply austerity to their own as they manage their offshore tax havens, that their champagne is not taxed, that their incomes go up what the 99.9 percent of those struggling doesn't?
Who are the real villains here, Matt?
The stigmatising and hostility directed towards the unemployed - scapegoating actually - creates more psychological damage than being poor and in a vulnerable position in my experience.
I first graduated in 1881, with a very poor understanding of my special strengths and weaknesses. There were 500 graduates to one job.
That hostility was like having acid thrown in my face. Now, near retirement age, I am still deeply angry about what happened to me in the UK, which was bigger than I truly knew how to deal with at the time.
My arts degree had about as much chance as a snowball's chance in hell of of securing me anything like a job.
I had been bullied at school by school peers and occasionally staff too, once being bawled out by the headmaster for not breaking out a scuffle on the dinner table I was supposed to be supervising when once admittedly a little zoned out. I was yelled and shouted out at home and more recently, bullied by my exchange students abroad because they decided English were cold and detached and not worth befriending. I knew I would go ballistic if anyone started criticising me or attacking me at work, ironically it did happen at a place I worked at voluntarily.
There are exploiters everywhere but more bullying in dole offices may well not work, actually.
I was sick of the hypocrisy of the work etbic anyway so I decided to be creatively unemployed. If you are going to be hung then let it be for a sheep rather than lamb!
The fears instilled by the stupid shrinks I was sent to as a child reared their heads in full as there were dark hints that maybe I was schizophrenic. Well I never heard any voices whatsoever, though a good deal of unhealthy preoccupation had sprung up at uni over what was persona and 'true' self and that enlightenment might mean killing off parts of myself.
I am just glad I left the UK and soon will need to make that an even more binding divorce. Never had a problem with unemployment since.
Independence can be a sterling quality Matt. But I do wonder when it becomes looking for others to censure others who get help whether there isn't some kind of resentment for those who appear to have it easier.