Julian Le Grand on Charity

The Filthy Smoker reminds me that Julian Le Grand is still about and still spouting the worst kind of authoritarian dogma. The last time I mentioned this execrable man was when he came up with the idea of banning alcohol sales in supermarkets and before that it was smoking permits.

Today, he has decided that we don’t give enough to charity. Never mind that his source is deeply flawed and therefore the whole premise of his argument holed below the waterline, he has a solution. It’s a cunning plan that would make Baldrick proud – let the state take the money and do it for us. As if they don’t already, of course. Le Grand’s reasoning – and I use the term loosely, believe me – is based upon the “nudge” principle that David Cameron has taken to his bosom.

So here is one idea that combines these concerns with the recently fashionable “nudge” agenda (after the book Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein – where the aim is to allow people the freedom to make choices but to change the context in which they make them so as to nudge them in a socially desirable direction).

Okay, let’s make one thing clear before we go a step further. iDave may be enamoured by the nudge principle, but I am not. Anyone who tries to nudge me will find that Newton’s third law of motion will also apply to the nudge principle; I will do precisely the opposite to what they want, so that they get the message loud and clear. I decide how I will live my life, not iDave, not Clegg and certainly not the pernicious Julian Le Grand. And doesn’t the term “socially desirable” make the blood run cold?

Anyway, the cunning plan? Oh, it’s a good one this:

Suppose in your tax return you were given the option of paying 1% extra income tax on condition that the extra revenue went into a poverty or inequality reduction fund. My personal favourite for this would be a restored child trust fund for low income groups, but others may have their own ideas. Further, this extra payment would happen automatically – unless you ticked a box in your tax return that said no.

So the state should take a further 1% of my money – on top of that which it already pisses up the wall and this is to be voluntary, but only if I opt out. Great. Opt out schemes are deeply unethical, which tells us much about Le Grand. I am perfectly capable – and so is everyone else – of making choices without state interference assistance and I intend to continue doing so. So, no absolutely, it will not happen automatically, because I will make the necessary effort to stop it.

What Le Grand misses here (well, apparently misses) is that most people on PAYE never see a tax return from one decade to the next. Who will tick their box for them? Oh, yeah, I see… Nice one, eh?

This would permit those who say that they would willingly pay more tax than the system allows to do so. They would do so in the knowledge that the money would actually be used in ways that reduce poverty and inequality, and in the expectation that others were being “nudged”, or encouraged by example, to do the same.

I do not wish to willingly pay more tax than I need to. I pay my accountant to ensure that I pay not a penny more than I absolutely have to, thank you very much. And, if I did decide in a fit of water on the brain to volunteer more tax, I’ll do what Tim Worstall points out is already in place.

The system does allow this. Simply send your cheque to “The Accountant”, 2 Horse Guards Road, London SW1. You can also specify which general area you would like the money spent upon (health, defence, paying down the national debt, at that sort of level of detail).

They will send you a nice thank you letter.

Of course, hardly anyone does, but they do have the choice.

And, further to Le Grand’s idea that we would expect others to be nudged, no, I don’t. I don’t want others to be nudged at all. It is as offensive to me as the suggestion that I be nudged.

The “nudge” would be more powerful if tax returns were publicly accessible, as they are in Sweden. The fact that the decision to tick the refusal box could be public knowledge, and that those who did so would be named and perhaps shamed, might persuade more to contribute. However, even in the absence of overt public pressure of this kind, many middle-class people would find it hard to tick that no box. For that would mean admitting to yourself – and to the taxman – that one’s professed concern for redistribution had an element of hypocrisy in it: a cognitive dissonance that would not be easy to accept.

Oh, my blessed lord, where to start with this pile of wretched cack? Well, firstly, just because it happens in Sweden, doesn’t make it right or ethical. My financial affairs are not a matter for public scrutiny, they are private, a concept beyond the meagre reasoning of Julian Le Grand. And, I want them to remain private thank you very much.

That said, if they were public knowledge, there is already evidence from comments on the Filthy Smoker’s piece that the middle classes, far from feeling ashamed are perfectly happy to tick the “no” box and let the world know. This is not hypocrisy and it is not cognitive dissonance. Indeed, what we have here is a typical false dichotomy; you either give voluntarily to the state or you are guilty of hypocrisy because you can’t reconcile your decision with your professed concern for redistribution. Er, no, not at all. I have a clear conscience, because I have absolutely no concerns about redistribution and nor have I professed any. I am adamantly opposed to the idea that the state should decide how much we may keep from our earnings and give it to those who cannot be bothered to work. Redistribution is a wicked, iniquitous idea begat of envy and spite draped seductively in a chiffon social conscience.

What I work for is mine to do with as I please. Taxation, given that we must have some, is to pay for services. I can also accept that it will provide a safety net for those who find themselves in temporary difficulty or are unable to work. The rest can damned well do as I do and work for it. So, no hypocrisy and no cognitive dissonance, despite the false dichotomy.

The “nudge” agenda was originally called libertarian paternalism, a phrase many described as an oxymoron. And the idea of a voluntary tax such as this could also be viewed as oxymoronic (or, by the uncharitable, as plain moronic).

It is an oxymoron. The two concepts; libertarianism and paternalism are diametric opposites. And, again, we have the false dichotomy; if you think the idea is moronic, you are uncharitable. Never mind that those of us deeply opposed to this repugnant idea might choose to give to charities of our choice (in my case, small independents who never, never suck at the taxpayers’ teat), also find the concept of libertarian paternalism moronic. It is moronic and I’m being remarkably charitable in saying so.

Reading the comments is the usual depressing affair. If the country was run by the Guardianista, it would be even worse than the thirteen years under New Labour. Rarely have I seen so much hatred, spite, misanthropy and outright envy in one place as I do with CiF. “Rich”, of course means “more money than I have” which also means that the state should take it away. These people really are the most sickening and illiberal cretins I’ve ever come across. Which is why a fair few of them think Le Grand’s idea is a fine one indeed.

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Update: SimonF in the comments refers me to this interesting read. What I found particularly fascinating was this comment about Le Grand’s apparent self-awareness.

The idea did not go down well. As Julian the Great later said:

My e-mail inbox exploded. Mostly with pictures of Hitler, I have to say. People were very hostile to that sort of idea. So, although the nudge agenda, I think, does have possibilities I think care has to be taken that people don’t feel that it’s the nanny state, indeed the nanny state squared.

It is interesting that Le Grand has no voice on his shoulder telling him when he’s crossed the line, and instead has to rely on the quantity of hate-mail he receives. Perhaps it’s his focus-group mindset. Maybe he just lacks a moral compass. Most likely, as with many public health protagonists, he is an opportunist, lurching towards prohibition but drawing back when the public’s apathy turns to disgust.

Self-aware enough to realise that his ideas were deeply unpopular, but sufficiently unaware to realise that he is once again crossing the line. Sufficiently unaware to realise that how much we drink, how little exercise we take, whether we smoke or not and our charitable giving is absolutely none of the state’s business and by extension, absolutely none of Le Grand’s. I doubt very much that the hostile reception to this latest insane proposal will deter him as he is clearly an incurable meddler.