The side we never see
It seems that almost all of the debates within our society today boil down to a single question at one level or another; do we want to maintain the kind of society in which we live? And if so, how are we going to pay for it?
Yeah I get it, nobody likes paying tax; but why are people seemingly incapable of seeing the connection between tax and the benefits it provides. The whole political narrative in today’s media has created this twisted understanding of what tax is and what its purpose is. So this is what I am going to tackle… well… attempt to chip away at.
So, tax; if you’ve listened to nearly any commentator (or politician) over the last thirty years in a liberal-democratic country you would know it as the analogue of Satan’s tithing. Greedy, corrupt, inept, wasteful government taking your hard earned money and wasting it on lazy, dependent moochers and immigrants. I mean, how could this ever have been a good idea? Surely if I’m the one smart enough and hard working enough to earn that money I’m the one best placed to choose where it’s spent?
It’s a convincing argument; I mean it must be given the number of people who believe it. It’s so convincing that I’m not going to be able to break it down in a single blog post… sorry, I’m just not that eloquent. But what I am going to do is make you think about the narrative that’s been peddled by the media and by society at large around tax and government. By pulling this narrative apart piece-by-piece over the course of a series of posts hopefully I’ll stimulate that part of your brain that asks “wait… but why is this so?”. I’m not so arrogant as to come here preaching that I have some kind of magical silver bullet or answer to everybody’s questions; after all, ‘No one can be a suppository of all wisdom’
So how am I to embark upon this journey of questioning the status-quo of our social narrative. Well, I want to start with a different story; my story.
My earliest memory is of the tiny log cabin I grew up in in rural Tasmania. Sounds almost quaint doesn’t it, and it would have been if it wasn’t for the socio-economic factors that led to my being raised in such a setting. My family lived on two forms of income; social security, and anything that could be earned through odd jobs within the local community. We lived below the poverty line, although it took me until my high school years to actually realise this. On my rather basic calculations, we had a household income (adjusted for inflation) of somewhere between 20-30 thousand dollars a year.
Was this the fault of my parents? Absolutely not; my father had been seriously injured during his career as a professional fisherman and was on a disability pension, meanwhile my mother knew no other life than being a stay at home mum. Even then she spent every spare moment of her life working to build what would eventually be the first of two failed businesses which ultimately led to a third and successful one. Although my parents divorced when I was fourteen they did it for the right reasons… I mean, I’m pretty sure I was the one who told them they REALLY needed to do it.
Did I ever begrudge the second-hand school uniforms? The single Vegemite sandwich I gingerly took to school with me while all the other kids had their boxes full of treats? The… colourful characters of the rural primary and high schools I spent my first sixteen years attending? No… never seriously. I can honestly say that I appreciated the opportunities I had been given. That didn’t mean that I didn’t want to change my situation though. So at 16 I got a job and at 17 I left home to live with two of my friends from that colourful rural high-school in southern Tassie.
I worked thirty-hour weeks while spending five days a week at school to get the marks I would need to get myself into university. You know when people say they lived in houses that were ‘falling down around their ears’… and you know that they mean it metaphorically? Yeah, that isn’t a metaphor. And before you start to think this is some kind of sob story, I actually loved this time of my life… I had an awesome childhood and loved my teenage years… even the time I had to spend digging up the overflowing sewage tank in the run down the house I was renting with my friends at 17 years old. I had great friends, heaps of fun, a great girlfriend who, although things never worked out, gave my life that little spark it needed… what more could I want?
I went on to get the marks I needed to get into uni and over the course of four years continued my pattern of work and school until I eventually graduated with a degree useful for a few things. To that list of things, I hope to add this blog… at least once I move onto some of my more technical topics.
Now I know you’re wondering “WTF does all of this have to do with inefficient government and overburdening tax rates?”. Well, that’s a simple one to answer. I owe everything I have, my awesome childhood, my entertaining-teen years, the opportunity to have a free education, good health care while growing up, income support when I had to leave home at 17, and my interest-free loan to study a degree of my choosing, to the political and social system I inherited from my parents and grandparents.
There is no great epiphany to be had here. I don’t expect to change anyone’s opinion on the socio-economic dynamics of our society with this post alone. All I want is to share a positive story. To show people that our system of taxing a small proportion of your income and having it redistributed by the government isn’t going to fund junkies and terrorists like so many commentators would have you believe. The vast majority of it is actually going to families like mine and people like my younger self.
For the record, I now have zero income from social security. I pay tax, and quite a bit of it too. Do I cringe a little when I see $600 taken out of my payslip for tax? Of course I do… that shit hurts. But then I remember that I myself am living, breathing, earning, proof that it is going towards building a better, stronger, and fairer society for all of us.