Tim Worstall

Pollyanna

Now it’s no surprise that I normally disagree with Polly Toynbee. But it’s rare that I get whipped up into actual hatred. Today:

Blair may have enjoyed the overreaction on the Guardian letters page
yesterday. An academic claimed that targeting teenage mothers "reveals
an implicit nuclear family bias". Even dottier, a professor emeritus,
no less, claimed: "Blair … cannot be ignorant of the policies which
led to sterilisation and ultimately extermination of antisocial groups
in Germany. It could happen here if people do not protest." Ho hum.

Ho hum is her reaction to a warning about the possible return of eugenics? Ho friggin’ Hum?

Perhaps it’s just another example of how we should all become more like Sweden?

For over 40 years, young socially marginalised working
class women in Sweden faced the danger of forced sterilisation.
This was carried out under laws intended to purify the Swedish
race, prevent the mentally ill from reproducing and stamp out
social activities classed as deviant. The last sterilisation took
place in 1975.

Between 1934 and 1976, when the Sterilisation Act was finally
repealed, 62,000 people, 90 percent of them women, were sterilised.
15-year-old teenagers were sterilised for "crimes" such
as going to dance halls. One woman was sterilised in 1960 for
being in a motorcycle gang. Orphans were sterilised as a condition
of their release from children’s homes. Others were pinpointed
on the basis of local neighbourhood gossip and personal grudges.
Some were targeted because of their "low intelligence",
being of mixed race, being gypsies, or for physical defects.

In

18 responses

  1. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    It could prove to be an efficient Pre-natal Social Exclusion Measure.

    Reply
  2. Frank Fisher Avatar
    Frank Fisher

    I dare say this is just another throwaway idea from Blair, but Tim, don’t you think the area is something that needs looking at? Sure, we don’t want to go all the way to a prescriptive eugenic policy, but at the same time, do we need to be skewing social and benefits policy to encourage/support parents who are likely to raise troublesome individuals? What if the state simply stepped back from all social security payments, said fine, you have kids if you want, but you support yourself? Is that a “eugenic” policy?
    What’s your view?
    Tim adds: Citizen’s Basic Income with no variation for family size (and are payments at all, no child benefit, no housing allowance, to tax credits, nada). Why no child allowance? Because having or not having children is simply a variation in consumption preferences and the State should not be paying for that.

    Reply
  3. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    Ah those were the days when I could read with mounting fascination civil service rationales (spin) for spending more taxpayers’ money in subsidies paid to the textile and clothing industries for strategic reasons and to maintain national security. Consider the dire national plight if we had no national source for making underwear in times of war . .
    In fact, by the 1980s and early 1990s most of the (diminishing) subsidies for clothing and textiles came by way of grants for employment creating/safeguarding projects in areas eligible for regional assistance. Because by chance I had witnessed as a spectator the start of a clothing project oop north I was able to see what happened downstream several years later after all the grants for the project had run out and the business losses started mount.
    The firm was proposing to shut down when along came another clothing firm offering to take the business on providing it was eligible for job safeguarding grants – which were duly offered because of the persisting high unemployment rates in the area. Meanwhile, the first firm went off to find and offer to buy another clothing business which was closing down in another part of the country eligible for regional assistance – providing, of course, there were grants for job safeguarding. Naturally, because high unemployment rates were endemic there too, grants were offered.
    It was instructive to watch all this from a desk in London. One clear insight was how the system of regional assistance – intended for the best of all possible motives to boost job creation in areas with persisting high unempolyment rates – in fact acted as an in-built mechanism for attracting and supporting declining industries in areas with high unemployment rates.

    Reply
  4. Bob B Avatar
    Bob B

    Sorry – wrong thread: please delete.

    Reply
  5. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    “Why no child allowance? Because having or not having children is simply a variation in consumption preferences and the State should not be paying for that.”
    Well it’s clearly not ‘simply a variation in consumption preferences’ like buying a cabbage is, for one because the State doesn’t have to pay its CBI to a cabbage. But anyway, am I right in saying that you believe the CBI should be paid to children?
    Tim adds: No.

    Reply
  6. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    Are the Social Democrats who effected this robust race policy the same Social Democrats who went on to flood their country with immigrants from the 3rd world?

    Reply
  7. Frank Fisher Avatar
    Frank Fisher

    Thanks for that Tim – okay, I can almost accept that. I presume you want a uniform and basic post-18 income that provides for bare subsistance only? And that anyone who wanted kids would have to fund them from their own pocket – fine, that would go a long way to solving our problems. And I guess that the basic income would provide the barest safety net to keep the softies happy – long term I think this would work. The problem of course is the transitional period – how would you get from where we are, to where you would like us to be? And would you reckon the media images of starving children would be manageable?
    Tim adds: Try Googling for Charles Murray’s “In Our Hands”. US based but the basis of the idea.

    Reply
  8. Neil Craig Avatar
    Neil Craig

    “One woman was sterilised in 1960 for being in a motorcycle gang. Orphans were sterilised as a condition of their release from children’s homes.”
    Whereas in britain we just locked them up in asylums for life (one woman recently released in her 60s). I think I prefer the Swedish way.

    Reply
  9. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    “Citizen’s Basic Income with no variation for family size”
    Thus throwing millions of children into poverty and indeed out of their homes through no fault of their own. You genius.
    “Because having or not having children is simply a variation in consumption preferences”
    If there was a way for people to easily cut back on the amount of children they have if, say, they lose a job and can’t support them on your CBI anymore, this idea might be marginally less insane. So what’s your solution for getting rid of the little blighters? Answers not to consist of “Don’t have them in the first place”, please, since we already know that doesn’t work.

    Reply
  10. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    “I right in saying that you believe the CBI should be paid to children?
    Tim adds: No.”
    Ok, but you need to admit then that the most obvious consequence of this proposal is going to mean many more children growing up in poorer households.

    Reply
  11. johnny bonk Avatar
    johnny bonk

    “Ok, but you need to admit then that the most obvious consequence of this proposal is going to mean many more children growing up in poorer households. ”
    – not necessarily, in the spirit of modern illiberalism it could be an offence to bring children into the world without adequate means. The state will remove the child and punish the citizen/subject in that case.

    Reply
  12. Frank Fisher Avatar
    Frank Fisher

    “Try Googling for Charles Murray’s “In Our Hands”
    Hmm. Who is that feller and how did he nick all my ideas? Sure, sounds good – but again, you have that transitional phase. Maybe he addresses that in his book – they don’t have it in macclesfield library which means I won’t be reading it – so Tim, IYO, which UK political party looks most set to tout policies along those lines?
    I wonder if he looks at indirect benefits too? All those hundreds of thousands of mickey mouse jobs in the public sector, all the make-work in the provinces? That would all have to go too.

    Reply
  13. james C Avatar
    james C

    If Blair said the moon was made of cheese, would Polly defend him?

    Reply
  14. Mark T Avatar
    Mark T

    You could of course extend the CBI to Children, simply make it in the form of an education voucher. That way society fulfils a perceived obligation to educate while the parents fulfil the obligation to feed and clothe. Equally the CBI could replace the pension and thus avoid the means testing savings disincentives at that end. The beauty is of course that by indexing the CBI to nominal GDP, everyone shares in economic prosperity and politicians are unable to favour one group over another. (Bye-Bye patronage, bye-bye lobbying.) For those that object to multiple fathers the CSA could, via the courts appropriate 50% of the fathers CBI to support his family. Subsequent families get 50% of what remains and so on. It would make girls view potential fathers more carefully and imopse a cost on fatherhood(like in the real world). I could go on since I too have thought a great deal about this, but it would end up as long as one of Bob B’s posts! (sorry Bob)

    Reply
  15. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    Why would a citzen’s basic income mean “Bye-Bye patronage, bye-bye lobbying”? In net terms there would be one set of voters who received it, and one set who didn’t. A reduction in the CBI would hurt the former and benefit the latter. It would in fact give the latter group quite an incentive to lobby for its reduction.
    Tim adds: No Matthew. Everyone receives the CBI.

    Reply
  16. James Avatar
    James

    Depends what level you set it. If it is at 50 pence a week it becomes pointless and is practically the same as abolishing welfare – meaning in the real world we have a few million people now without income and thus faced with having to steal to survive, or work for wages so low that criminality is an attractive alternative. If you put it at say £100 a week (roughly the level of the maximum student loan) then the Daily Mail and tabloids carry headlines about “free money” and thus the idea gets scuppered.
    I think CBI is a brilliant idea, provided its set a reasonable level. Its just the chances of any party managing to implement it at a non miserly level are remote.
    Tim adds: Chris Dillow had a go at costing it out. 100 a week looked about right. (113 would be even better, minimum pension guarantee). $10,000 a year for the US, Charles Murray thinks.

    Reply
  17. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    “Tim adds: No Matthew. Everyone receives the CBI.”
    On a net basis, no. Let’s say it’s £5k and 20% tax rate above that, then anyone on more than £30k doesn’t receive anything. Any cut in the CBI matched by a cut in the tax rate to pay for it (let’s say to £2.5k and 10%, for example) would benefit them (in this example for someone on £40k they would go from paying tax of £2k, to paying tax of £1.25k).
    Tim adds: There are variations. Murray makes is taxable at $25,000 (but different from general income tax) and tax on it ceases to rise at $50 k so that only half is received.
    I prefer the method where it is never taxed, simply is not part of ones taxable income at all.

    Reply
  18. Mark T Avatar
    Mark T

    Agree, set it at £110pw and at the same time set the tax threshold to =1x CBI. (£110pw simply because that is the current max pension) So effectively you can take home c 11k before paying any tax. Proper help for the low paid. Employers pay 10% NI from zero (realistically that is £500 a year to employ someone on an amount equivalent to CBI.) This is sufficiently low to make it attractive to be “legal” and of course the employee is indifferent to a degree. After all he is now taking home an amount equivalent to being paid around £17k while his cost to an empoyers is almost a third of that! Subsidising British citizens? Guess that’s a spin-off. You then Tax income above that @ say 20% plus 10% NI, admitting it is a tax and correctly pricing labour. I would put in an upper threshold, also at a fixed multiple of CBI, of around £80k where the rate goes to 30% – avoiding being hijacked by the anti flat tax brigade.
    Total cost approx £300bn or 25% of GDP. This is of course not a net increase, looking at “The Bumper Book of Waste” and “The Welfare State We Are In” I reckon about £250bn is already spent as education, housing, social protection etc – before we get into the £30-£50 bn of “waste”. And referring to a previous thread, once the system is simplified, there are fewer opportunities for for Sir Humphrey to hold onto the other £50bn of over-expenditure James Bartholomew thinks is there.
    Also Having removed the dis-incentive to save in terms of no means tested pension, we could simplify the pensions system, a simple 10year CGT taper on all assets would suffice saving around £10bn.
    My point abut less lobbying is that Index the CBI as a constant % of GDP (say rolling three year)then everyone is seen to benefit or lose together and it is not in the Chancellor’s “Gift” to spend money on client groups. Finally, the CBI is only available to British citizens. Immigrants can apply for citizenship after, say, 5 years and proff of gainful tax paying employment. Would make being British worth something (and not just £110 a week). As I said, there is a lot more….maybe Chris can cost it all out.

    Reply

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