The poor pay for the rich

This is the oldest feature of mankind. It has been called "class system" by Marxist, or Aristocracy by philosophers and historians, but underlying these designations is the simple fact that the poor pay for the rich. It could be said like this:

"Those who do not have, give money to those who do have."

This typifies most of human societies in history. The main way that this transfer of wealth occurs is defined in what is called "property." Property is a system whereby the dominant extract wealth from the subordinate in what is usually called "Rent". The essence of Capitalism is Rent, but the diversity of vehicles by which those who possess property extract wealth from the poor has diversified immensely. We have bailouts now, where risk is transferred from capitalists owners to tax payers who in the large part are not owners, or at least still take a wage as their primary income rather than returns on investment. Let me make a definition here:

a capitalist is someone whose lifetime income is more than 50% gained from investment and inheritance, and less than 50% from wages.

Owners of almost all companies in UK take their income in dividends rather than wages to escape tax. This is a loop hole which greys the boundary of the definition. But the freedom to take dividends rather than wages, and the tax breaks this affords clearly separate such people as the boundary of a different class compared to their employees. The size of the tax breaks only increase as the capitalist becomes more powerful.

Defenders of the system say that investors earn their income because of the risk they take. However the only risk they really take is to lose everything and have to join the dole queue like their employees. The only risk taken by investors is that they might lose their status as investors. You cannot logically reward a wealthy class for taking the risk that they might lose that status. It is absurd. Indeed the system of Capitalism is absurd.

All manner of absurd excuses are given for the system. Most recently a back story was invented of 'trickle down' to justify in hindsight the no longer concealable (or defendable) wealth of the Capitalist class. A wealthy upper class benefits a system by creating jobs through their spending. This obviously would have worked in the ages of Kings and Aristocracies, and it didn't work then any more than now. The level of idiocy demonstrated by the myth writers of the Capitalist class shows the level of degeneration our society has already seen.

It may come as a surprise to many that the poor pay a higher rate to the Capitalists than in medieval times. During the Middle Ages, after the Norman conquest, while England was enslaved to the Kings of Normandy workers gave 50% of their produce to the land owner. Today in England workers pay about 40% tax on their income and then 20% on the rest via VAT. That is 52%. Under a democratic socialist country like England that 52% is paid in the service of the tax payers through central government, law courts, defence, universal health care, universal education and a host of other services.

Yet under Capitalism this 52% has changed meaning. It is used to fuel inject the economy to drive growth in Capitalist investments. Debts so gained are paid for by cutting back on non-profitable parts of the economy so that taxes can be used to support contracts in 3rd party industries like construction ultimately benefiting the investors in those industries. This is why government spending may slow but it cannot stop increasing. If the government stopped spending then the Capitalists would lose. The tax payer meanwhile is sold a myth that cut backs are necessary to save the economy and jobs, neglecting to point out that investors are the real concern. Despite each person in the UK having a vote, it is worthless as the largest lobby group that determines both the funding for the Conservative Party and the Media and so controls both policy and public opinion is the Capitalist Investor class. UK Ltd. is run by a Capitalist oligarchy. In this way it is exactly the same as it has always been, just the Public Image of the country has been very carefully engineered by spin doctors.

And so we are left with the stark fact that UK, and the entire world that has fallen under the Western Empire (and most of the rest of the world that still hasn't escaped Feudalism), is split roughly into two types of people. Those who have too much, and those who do not have enough. And the latter then end up working for and paying for the rights to borrow things from the wealthy, thus increasing the wealth of the wealthy, and keeping the poor in poverty. We can try and dig our way out by becoming Capitalists our selves. The recent Buy-to-Let boom has offered many people the dream of finally becoming Capitalists. But it only works when you have poor people who need to rent from you. The size of the Buy-to-Let was always limited by the number of desperate poor there are. Obviously not everyone can become Buy-to-Let landlords else who would move in and pay rent? This way it can be seen that systems of rent must always divide society into those who will pay rent, and those who will collect it. And the former must by definition be a much greater number than the latter. But it is not that the system makes a two tier world but rather the other way around. Human society at the moment is still built upon a fundamental belief in inequality. It is from this root belief that we chose to live by mechanisms that enforce inequality and division. It is pointless complaining about poverty in the world, or seeing desperate people on the streets, and even the charities are swimming against the tide. The very root of human existence is still based on inequality. This deepest problem that lies at the heart of Humankind's war with itself still waits to be solved.