Based on a sample frame of nigh on sixty thousand respondents to Gallup research on wellbeing, the research linked people's assessment of personal wellbeing to satisfaction with public goods:
"Well-being was expressed in people's assessments of their overall life quality, from “worst” to “best possible life,” on a scale of 1 to 10; and in whether they enjoyed positive daily experiences (such as smiling, being treated with respect, and eating good food) or suffered negative ones, including sadness, worry, and shame. Finally, the analysis looked at the participants' satisfaction with their nation's public goods, from schools to clean air."
Tax progressivity was measured by comparing the gap between lower and upper tax rates, with correction for factors such as family size, tax benefits, and social security payments.
The results confirm TJN's view that tax systems which are seen to be just, combined with effective delivery of public services, are more likely to contribute to personal wellbeing and social harmony:
"On average, residents of the nations with the most progressive taxation evaluated their own lives as closer to “the best possible.” They also reported having more satisfying experiences and fewer discomfiting ones than respondents living in nations with less progressive taxes."
Click here to obtain the full report on this fascinating new research.
NB: Reposted from Tax Justice Network with permission
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Richard, a very interesting article and I would agree in principle. However, in the UK when we see council services being cut (and not just last year as the 2-week bin collection has been going on since 2007 at least), roads full of potholes and the NHS in an ever decaying state it is little wonder that people don’t like all these taxes thrust upon them. However, is this because there are less people paying taxes (and I’m not really talking about the top 1% particularly) or is it because the public sector is so over bloated that all my council taxes go towards paying salaries and pensions instead or providing a good council service? I imagine it’s a bit of both.
The big problem is uncollected tax – £120 billion at last count
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/03/11/tax-justice-and-jobs-the-business-case-for-investing-in-staff-at-hm-revenue-customs/
How do you imagine that services would get provided without workers? Or perhaps you think that workers shouldn’t get paid.
Carol,
The only point I was making was directly related to the article about people being happy to pay tax if they felt they were getting value from their taxation. I personally do not like the fact that my bins are only emptied every 2 weeks and the roads are full of holes which have recently severely damaged my car. I pay my council tax and my road tax and therefore I feel I am entitled to these services. I am certainly not as stupid to suggest that these were not related to the tax gap. I do not deny anybody a job, or a decent salary or a decent pension. I did say that council services have been on the decline for many years and that was long before the recent cuts were imposed. I posed a perfectly reasonable question to Richard in asking him whether he thought that the public sector had become bloated and was this why services had gone down and taxes had gone up. I am aware of both yours and Richard political leanings but I was trying to be non-political. You obviously weren’t.
Mike
I tried to give an honest answer too during the course of a busy afternoon
I do not agree your hypothesis for a number of reasons: a) tax is not a contract and is not paid for services b) I don’t agree services are necessarily getting worse – the NHS is stunningly better than ever before fr example and my son’s school simply amazing c) tax is never, ever non-political and the claim that it is must always be interpreted as a deeply political act
Richard
Carol
Of course we need workers for services, and of course those workers should be paid. And they should receive pensions that they can live on when they retire. And many many people do brilliant work providing those services, and don’t get paid enough for that.
But none of that means that there isn’t a huge amount of inefficiency in certain areas. There is. It’s there in the private sector too, without question, but that’s not the point here.
Denial of the issues in the public sector is unhelpful. I work closely with an area of the public sector which provides a key (but massively neglected, in my view) service.. predominantly for the benefit of the people who most need state support. It is, however, very inefficient. It’s overloaded with overpaid and underperforming management and middle management, whilst those who do the important work are underpaid and overstretched. Again, that’s a lot like many private sector organisations.
The demonisation of the public sector by the media and, to some extent, the government, is deeply unhelpful. But so is a flat denial that anything needs to be done. One of the tragic legacies of New Labour was that so much of the extra money that was directed at public services just ended up fattening the salaries of managers in a misguided attempt to bring in private sector ‘expertise’. That failed, not least because in relaity what happened was that existing public sector management just got on the merry-go-round and bagged themselves fat pay increases.. good people from the private sector were kept out by requirements for ‘public sector experience’.
If all this inefficiency is normal then actually these organisations are not inefficient – they are as efficient s possible – so while you may not like it theybar efficient, but subject to normal human failings
And much of that will always happen
So why do we agonise over some totally false idea f theoretical possibility ?l
Richard
I’ve not heard the issue ‘expressed’ in those kind of terms before (i.e. it happens everywhere therefore it’s normal). I like it (though I bet I wouldn’t have to look too far to find examples where that rationale could be applied to behaviours you’re opposed to, and I doubt you’d be quite so pragmatic).
But yes, there is an inevitability about much inefficiency. We cannot expect a majority of people to work to exactly 100% capacity, make every decision the right one, and always get the best possible value.
However, that is not to say that we should just accept inefficiency.. we can always get better and that can only happen when people are open to the fact that inefficiencies are present and can can be tamed – if there is a denial of that then there is a problem.
New inefficiencies will always occur, and the challenge in any organisation is to identify them and try and deal with them. If one doesn’t constantly seek to do so then things get steadily worse and that organisation falls behind those that face up to their failings. My experience, which, albeit anecdotal, is based on professional exposure to organisations.. not on what the Daily Telegraph says, is that there is less will/motivation to do that in the public sector.
Mike H:
Can you point out whuch areas of the public sector and massively innefficient and which areas are laden with overpaid, underperforming management, please?
In point of fact, there is probably no way the NHS would cost taxpayers £100 billion a year if there hadn’t been all sorts of political interference such as PFI schemes amd attempts to open hospitals up to privateers.
I would suggest PFI and PPP schemes probably account for much of the utter waste that goes on in public services.
If government’s stopped interfering with them for the benefit of privateers, they would probably be much more efficiently run.
By the way, why is competition with the private sector always thought to be the best solution? Experience seems to teach us otherwise!
Ah yes … the cost of salaries and pensions for public sector workers, how dare they!
You may consider it unfortunate but these costs are inherentin both the “public” and “private” sector and neither can function without them. For real injustice turn your attention to the £billions that the Treasury loses every year in tax dodging thanks to offshore secrecy jurisdictions operating from small islands just a few hundred miles from you.
This tax loss creates “over bloating” on an almost inconceivable scale and is mostly orchestrated from the impenetrable, arcane and multifaceted (not to mention medieval) platform known as the City of London.
Happiness or contentment arises from feeling a secure attachment to others, the world and oneself … relationships which are not fostered in unregulated markets. For example income security fosters attachment on all levels:
‘ It is clear that the identified goals of income security, and a low degree of income inequality, are completely incompatible with the requirements of the current economic system (Thatcherism or Reaganomics) which has dominated globally for the past three decades. Implicit to the unregulated market, or neoliberalism, is flexibility in the labour market. In other words, there may be little job security for a worker because of temporary or short term contracts; the undercutting of wages because of the free movement of labour within the EU, out-sourcing of jobs abroad, anti-union legislation and so on. Toleration of high levels of unemployment is also implicit. Redundancies, increased work loads, pay freezes, closing of pension schemes and pay cuts are implemented in the name of ‘efficiency’ or ‘the bottom line’, without seemingly questioning the underlying desirability, or implications, of such ‘efficiencies’ or increased profits, for either society or the individuals affected.’
http://think-left.org/2011/07/22/increasing-the-sum-of-global-well-being-should-be-the-over-arching-and-ultimate-motivation-for-every-politician-and-policy/
A progressive tax system is anathema to neoliberalism.
I think if you start looking at public versus private sector, you are falling into the trap that’s been laid to distract us from our current problems. It’s a deliberate diversion tactic. Do people really think that the UK has debts due to public sector pensions?
That seems like a very convenient way of forgetting the banking crisis, which has cost the UK billions. Surely no one is suggesting the banks were run by the public sector? Even now when some of them ARE owned largely by the public, they’re still privately controlled.
The bigger question is surely about the use of money itself, what it represents and the ridiculous nature of the fractional reserve system. Also I think its fair to note that there was a time when there was no public sector, and the states needs were met by private companies. The corruption and awful service supplied were the reason that the public sector came into being at all.