Sunday 22 March 2009

Fun Online Poll Results: What kind of economic system would you prefer?

Thanks to the hundred people who took part in last week's poll. The results were that 87% preferred an economic system that makes it easier to become wealthy, as against 13% who preferred one that makes it easier to remain wealthy.

As ever, I would like to point out that this is a subtle distinction. All things being equal, high taxes make it more difficult to become wealthy and more difficult to remain wealthy (unless you belong to the elevated class who lives off tax receipts, in which I include not just the quangocracy but those who live off ground rents and property gains as a form of privatised taxation), as do regulations. But, as much as industry decries EU or government imposed regulations, there are two classes of affected business:

Take for example maternity rights* - for a large supermarket chain, with hundreds of stores and tens of thousands of employees, it is quite easy to cater for the fact that at any time x% of your younger female staff will be on maternity leave - when they're ready to come back to work, full- or part-time, it's quite easy to slot them back in again. It's not quite the same for a small business employing a dozen people or fewer - for such businesses, one employee going on maternity leave (with all the associated costs and hassle) can make the difference between profits and losses or between survival and failure.

So, while such regulations don't appear to immediately benefit large businesses, they certainly raise barriers to entry, and by harming small employers far more than large employers, I'd class them as part of an economic system that makes it more difficult to become a large employer and relatively easier to remain a large employer.
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This week's Fun Online Poll: "Can anybody see the slightest difference between Labour's and the Tories' tax and spend policies?" Vote here or use the widget in the side bar.

* The lazy reader will instantly accuse me of being a MCP. Far from it, I happen to be married and I know exactly what it's like when women in their twenties are applying for jobs, with or without young children.

2 comments:

Witterings from Witney said...

Very good mw - but still think you are wrong on local income tax!

Mark Wadsworth said...

WfW, would you really prefer LIT to Council Tax?