Who are the fuel protesters?

[sihhi]

It's a voluntary tax though, based on consumption. As with booze & fags society at large seeks to discourage consumption by high taxes.

Has consumption on booze been discouraged by high taxes? No.

Taxes are a way of the state elite preserving its wealth.

 

[TeeJay]

Has consumption on booze been discouraged by high taxes? No.

Apparently "the real price of drinks in the UK has halved since the 1960s" http://society.guardian.co.uk/drugsandalcohol/story/0,8150,1548062,00.html

 

[newbie]

Has consumption on booze been discouraged by high taxes? No.

Evidence? You may be right but your point is counterintuitive. Teejay's link indicates falling prices coinciding with rising consumption... which is what common sense would suggest...price limits consumption of most popular things (like, er, petrol), why not booze?

Taxes are a way of the state elite preserving its wealth.

A slightly partial view. Should I be out there demanding lower taxes, more wealth in the hands of the individual? Let's start with petrol at 30p/litre so the dratted state elite can't go around wasting my money on damnfool ideas like hospitals.

 

[Patty]

Should I be out there demanding lower taxes, more wealth in the hands of the individual? Let's start with petrol at 30p/litre so the dratted state elite can't go around wasting my money on damnfool ideas like hospitals.

Agree, but it's who the state burdens with tax the most and what they do with it that I don't like. The health service is underfunded, billions of pounds have been spent on invading Iraq (for oil interests).

As for your ealier point. I dont think that people cant make their own choises or that those comuters are pawns of capitalism. I think that capitalism dominates peoples lives(including my own) to the point that it has to be faught against along with it's effects, such as pollution and dangerous roads, and the waging of wars for oil interests.
Just blaming individuals for social phenomina that is beond their controll is another way of accomdating the very system that creates the problem in the first place.
Whilst working people are busy blaming each other for this or that problem, the propieters of capitalism are busy ripping ALL of us off.

 

[sihhi]

Evidence? You may be right but your point is counterintuitive. Teejay's link indicates falling prices coinciding with rising consumption... which is what common sense would suggest...price limits consumption of most popular things (like, er, petrol), why not booze?

TJ's link says nothing about the tax burden on alcoholic drinks.

Taxation on beer has increased in budgets since the 1990s and been reduced for spirits- and consumption in general has not decreased.

I have it that in general can't remember where from: "A 10% increase in price leads to approximately a 5% decrease in beer, 7.5% decrease in wine and 10% decrease in spirit consumption"

So yep increase in tax=increase in price=decrease in consumption BUT sometimes things aren't always so direct- as with beer.

Should I be out there demanding lower taxes, more wealth in the hands of the individual? Let's start with petrol at 30p/litre so the dratted state elite can't go around wasting my money on damnfool ideas like hospitals

If you're working-class then for sure that should be your argument and free public transport, free bikes etc etc...
Capitalist parasites should pay for hospitals and transport to them which should also be free.

Flat taxes always target the poorer half who have to cut down on their consumption.

 

[newbie]

Just blaming individuals for social phenomina that is beond their controll is another way of accomdating the very system that creates the problem in the first place.
Whilst working people are busy blaming each other for this or that problem, the propieters of capitalism are busy ripping ALL of us off.

Just blaming individuals misses the social conditions individuals face. I guess I'm guilty of that in my post above. I probably don't berate capitalism for the structural conditions that caused them to act that way.

Equally just blaming the bogey capitalism abdicates individuals of responsibility. Capitalism may create the conditions in which we each operate, but it forces very few people to drive to and from work in central London, yet thousands do, daily. And they do it because they value the buzz & income a London job gives them, they value the safety and quality of life the hinterland give them, and they value the security and comfort of their car. They want it all. They are, IMO, selfish, and I can't blame capitalism for that. Plenty of people work close to where they live, plenty more use public transport. They have made choices which are more socially responsible.

Refusing to blame some working people for behaviour which actively harms others (pollution, road safety) means accepting whatever the least socially conscious choose to inflict on us.

 

[newbie]

If you're working-class then for sure that should be your argument and free public transport, free bikes etc etc...
Capitalist parasites should pay for hospitals and transport to them which should also be free.

Flat taxes always target the poorer half who have to cut down on their consumption.

We're talking about how people use their disposable income here. It's a voluntary flat tax, same as that on beer. People have choices.

But no-one could suggest that the poor have as many choices as the rich. Any price rise in anything will bear most on those with least.

IMO however, the solution to that can't be to demand that everybody has access to what the richest have now. There isn't enough oil, or road space, or parking space, it couldn't be done.

I've asked before how finite resources should be divvied up, but never had a particularly satisfactory answer.

 

[Patty]

just[/b] blaming the bogey capitalism abdicates individuals of responsibility.

I do see your point.
However I think that any attempt to solve the problem of road congetion, pollution etc. has to start from the point of view that public transport is insufficiant. Not so much the case in and around London but the most of the rest of the UK has little more than a skeliton service when it comes to busses and trains.
Also the price of a train ticket in to London from any where further a-field than the home counties during "peak hours" is absolutely extortionate (£99 return from Derby for example).
"bogey capitalism" ? Sounds like some sort expression used to dismiss genuine problems whith the present system. But as I say I do see the general point you make.

 

[newbie]

it's a bogey when it's used as a lame excuse for what we as individuals, communities, workforces, whatever chooose to do. Capitalism wanted us to hand over control of mutuals (building societies etc). We didn't have to, we chose to- the responsibility lies with us not the capitalists, but it's dead easy to say 'capitalism forced demutualisation' or somesuch.

Same with oil, overconsumption is dangled in front of us as a carrot, but we don't have to grasp for it.