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Denis Cooper

"I believe that hierarchy and inequality are innate to all human societies, and that attempts by governments to alter this fact are futile and counterproductive."

Agreed, but what a government can do is:

a) Promote social mobility, so that a child born at one level in the social hierarchy is not necessarily destined to remain at that level for the rest of his life, but can rise or fall according to his personal merit.

b) Try to ensure that the inequality does not become so extreme that the society splits apart, at worst in revolution and civil war.


Denis - it is arguable that Governments (and religions) cause civil war and revolution.

Sean Fear is right - restrict Government to national interests and protection, and let the rest of us get on with our lives, linking with communities and charities as it suits us at different times of our lives.

The Welfare State and the Nanny State are pernicious destroyers of social/community morality.


if wealth passes through families, there shouldn't be any path to civil war. Only in the good old days when capital was the exclusive preserve of one class of people could wealth bullding act as a precursor to war or revolution.

today any family can rise (if we improve education) and any family can go into decline. nature's socialism ensures that a high performing generation is usually followed by a series of low performing ones.

A family only produces a high performer about every fifth generation or so on average. There is no need for the state to break up holdings of wealth. nature does it quite effectively enough. if the state intervenes to accelerate the decline of familes, who gains?


You are perpetuating a historic myth, at least as far as England is concerned, that capital was restricted to one class, and that social mobility came about in the 20th Century.

In fact, the structure of English (I use the word advisedly)society going back centuries shows considerable movement back and forth between classes, a factor that has contributed to a reasonably stable history - in comparison to our European neighbours.

This is not to deny the Civil War or the Peterloo Massacre or any other results of the efforts to change/modernise society, it just means we've tended to cope better than many other countries.

Michael Ehioze-Ediae

I believe that the government should also provide assistance to the down-trodden in society. Although, the assistance should not create a culture of dependency.

We are one nation and thus, we have a moral duty to care for our fellow citizens.

Denis Cooper

I agree with you sim, that throughout most periods of history English society has been better than most at forestalling violent class warfare. It goes back a very long way, and arguably has its roots in pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon society and the age-old customs of those Germanic tribes which escaped absorption into the Roman Empire. Therefore when I say that promoting social mobility should be an important consideration for any British government it's not because I'm some kind of bolshevik, it's because I'm English and I want to see that tradition continued.

The way to do that while minimising the dependency of adults on the state is to give every child a good start in life, whatever the circumstances of his family.

Denis Cooper

tapestry @ 18:40 -

"There is no need for the state to break up holdings of wealth."

If you're referring to IHT, at present the effect of that is not to "break up" holdings of wealth, but to erode them by an absolute maximum of 40%.

94% of estates - no tax. 6% of estates - tax between zero and maximum of 40%.

Illustrative example of where IHT is paid - surviving parent dies in his 70's or 80's, leaving an estate of £500,000 without taking any precautions against IHT.

After £285,000 nil rate band, 40% of £215,000 = £86,000, overall tax rate = 17% of gross estate. As most of the estate consists of a house bought when home buyers benefited from mortgage interest tax relief, the IHT paid now after the death of the purchaser effectively recovers income tax which he would have paid then if that scheme had not been put in place to encourage home ownership.

Only child in his 40's or 50's, who after a good start in life thanks to his relatively well-to-do parents already has his own house, now inherits £414,000 - about as much as the average worker earns over 20 years, gross - and complains that his unearned, windfall, inheritance has been taxed at 17%.

I find it hard to feel a lot of sympathy for a case like that. In fact I'd rather reserve my sympathy for members of the next generation along, who know that if they go to university they'll start their working lives with massive debts, plus in any case they'll have to feed enormous sums into the bottom of the housing market which will eventually come out of the market in the form of somebody's inheritance.

Daniel Vince-Archer

Sean, your weekly column on PB.com is always interesting and informative.

Sean Fear

Thank you, Daniel.

Mary Allen

You believe that inequality is 'innate to all human societies' - wow, what made you so bitter and twisted Sean? Inequality should certainly NOT be a component of a 'human' society. A Tory society yes, but not a 'human' society.

Sean Fear

Name a society in which inequality doesn't exist, Mary.


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