I agreed with much of what was in Tim Stanley's article but there's a couple of points I'd pick up on:
The second is that as part of the rich, those running the state don't use the resources available against their own.
It's only the great unwashed, as we used to be contemptuously called, who suffer all of the increasing state control.
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The trouble witn privacy is that it's all too easy for it to be seen as secrecy to hide something, creating rumour. In my management career I always made public my salary and bonuses, despite those always being a large multiple of what my employees earned. For a specific example after the end of my first full year in a new job I showed my yard staff my P60 of earnings for the year. The immediate reaction from one was "You deserve it Ton" (my first name is Tony), The only thing that concerned the others was the amount of tax I had deducted, which was around eight times the whole amount each earned in the same year. Their opinion, it was disgusting and unfair that I lost that much. It illustrates that if everything is transparently out in the open the status quo is more readily accepted.if the super-rich have to fling open their accounts to the rest of the world, you and I will have to do the same, too. The only tax haven a poor man like me is ever likely to use is the spot under my mattress. But that’s not the point: privacy is a principle that’s worth losing a bit of tax income to protect.
There are two flaws in this contention. The first is the ability of the rich to keep money wherever they like, often hidden and avoiding all or part of the taxes the rest of us pay.We are led to believe that the rich have too much power and influence, but they cannot compete with a state that increasingly has both the technology and the will to examine and regulate every aspect of our lives.
The second is that as part of the rich, those running the state don't use the resources available against their own.
It's only the great unwashed, as we used to be contemptuously called, who suffer all of the increasing state control.
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