By Brian Barder / @brianlb
Ed Miliband, second favourite after his big brother for the Labour leadership, has written a piece on his campaign blog in which he argues for a graduate tax as a fairer alternative to tuition fees. Four of the five candidates now favour a graduate tax and the press reports that the coalition government is actively encouraging the idea. Vince Cable was on the radio this morning talking it up, not as an alternative to tuition fees but as an addition to them. I see nothing fair about this idea. I have posted a comment on Ed Miliband’s blog post explaining why, but it’s still “awaiting moderation”. In case my comment doesn’t survive the moderator’s delete key, I’m reproducing it here:
There’s absolutely nothing fair about a graduate tax. It assumes that a university degree increases the earning power of graduates, which is no doubt true as a generalisation but certainly not true of all graduates — especially at a time when growing numbers of people are going to finish their university courses with degrees but no hope of a job at a time of very high unemployment. It has never been true of the many graduates who work for the not-for-profit sector or even in many areas of the public sector. Many graduates are forced to take jobs for which they are over-qualified and therefore underpaid, with no extra earning power attributable to their degrees.
But the even more serious objection to a graduate tax is that a university degree is only one of numerous factors that may result in above-average incomes: high IQ, industriousness, unscrupulousness, good contacts through well-off parents or through having been to a ‘public’ school, an affluent upbringing and social confidence, good luck — the list is endless. There’s no possible justification or need for government to single out the beneficiaries of one particular advantage (such as a university degree) for an additional tax obligation: if the tax system is progressive, as one day a future Labour government might just possibly make it, then the higher people’s incomes, the more tax they pay, regardless of the reasons for their relative affluence. Why should a graduate pay more tax on her income than someone with no degree but an identical income?
Other arguments against a graduate tax are:
* that the provision of university education to all those who can benefit from it benefits the whole of society in numerous obvious ways, including indirectly those who haven’t been to university, so society should pay for university education collectively through the tax system;
* that the prospect of having to pay a graduate tax on top of income tax and other taxes would inevitably discourage many able young people from aspiring to a university education; and
* that a graduate tax, calculated to pay for the costs of university education, is in effect a hypothecated tax, whose proceeds would be earmarked for a specific category of expenditure; and this is contrary to the basic principle that taxes go into the Consolidated Fund which the chancellor of the exchequer can use with total flexibility for whatever needs may arise.
The fair solution to the problem of funding university teaching is a general increase in the higher rates of income tax, on the principle that all those who can afford to contribute more to social goods, not just graduates, should pay more tax . A future Labour government will need to be much less timid about taxing very high incomes — and wealth — on a steeply rising scale. The new 50% marginal rate (which incidentally doesn’t mean anyone paying 50% of their entire income in tax, as many people seem to think) is a start, but there’s ample scope for much more. Threats from the mega-rich to emigrate if their taxes go up are a bluff that should be called — and if it’s not a bluff, good riddance to them. To each according to his need….
Please think again, Mr Miliband and Dr Cable. Tuition fees should certainly be abolished, but not to be replaced, still less supplemented, by a graduate tax. The arguments for financing state school education out of general taxation apply every bit as strongly to higher education. Grasp the nettle.
Update, pm 15 July 2010:
My comment (i.e. this post) has now appeared on Ed Miliband’s blog (here). So have a good number of other comments, mostly making very good points both for and — especially — against the idea of a graduate tax. I was especially struck by this one:
Rob Hepworth [Moderator]
It’s preferable to fees but still the lesser of evils. I’m nervous about hypothecated taxes. There’s a danger that our opponents will jump at this and do it for other services eg health – a “health Tax” – to be paid only by people who use the NHS ? Or a schools tax only paid by parents whose children use state schools ? No!! … If we need a tax on top, why not a tax on larger companies whose future manpower depends on a supply of educated graduates?
Other comments on Mr E Miliband’s blogpost advance additional cogent arguments against this deeply flawed idea. And there are yet more very good points in comments here on LabourList. I can’t believe that Dr Cable’s heart is really in it, or that Ed Miliband’s should be.
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I particularly like your assertion that there are many factors which can lead to a higher paying job, and university is only one of those factors - but it is also the only factor which can help underprivileged people into well paid jobs.
Face the facts:
1) We can't keep taxing rich people, just because you use the word "Progressive", it doesn't make it so. If you tax too highly people stop paying (or leave as you suggest) which leads to less tax receipts and less re-distribution of wealth.
2) Grad's (of which I am one) earn far more on average than people that didn't go to Uni therefore it only seems fair or "Progressive" that we pay more later for the privilege, and believe me it is a privilege.
3) It's not a right to have a University education. However it is a right to have education, hence the general taxation for primary and secondary but not higher If you don't like the idea of paying more tax, don't go to Uni.
Finally let not forget, we want people to aspire to better things, therefore we need to provide opportunities to do that. This includes excellent education and higher education, nicer houses, better jobs and yes even things like nicer cars and other consumables. Let's move away from higher and higher taxation which is nothing more than taxing aspiration. We live in democratic society (mostly) not a communist state.
"Grad's (of which I am one) earn far more on average than people that didn't go to Uni therefore it only seems fair or "Progressive" that we pay more later for the privilege..."
Does it not occur to you that the income tax system ensures that the more you earn, the more tax you pay -- whether your above-average income is attributable to your university degree, your success in running a business inherited from your father and maximising its profits by sacking half its workforce, your luck in investing in equities recommended by a friend with inside knowledge, or your promotion through the ranks in the Ministry of Funny Walks due to your years of diligent application? You don't explain why you think that just one of these contributory factors -- a degree -- should incur another tax on top of income tax, which others with identical incomes would not have to pay.
And incidentally I am not convinced that your arguments are made more persuasive by your suggestion that someone with whom you disagree must, or might, be a communist. I wouldn't dream of speculating about which political slot you might appear to occupy!
Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/
Source of funding.
Yes there are footballers who earn £200k a week but there are only a handful of them. Even if you entered a socialist utopia and taxed everything over the average wage at 90% you would only get an extra £100m from the premier league. That is not even the grant for two mid-sized universities. And the players would all move clubs asap. Even now, international sports starts like Hussain Bolt will not come to the UK to compete due to our tax laws (not the tax on winnings but the tax on worldwide endorsements). Even the 50% bank bonus raised only £2bn and, if implemented permanently would become a falling level of income as fewer and fewer bank jobs are created (I dont think that there would be a mass exodus, more a decline as new banking centres replace London). The 50p tax on people earning over £150,000 will only raise £5.5bn and again that would be a declining resource as tax accountants learn to hid it, entrepreneurs move to friendly markets and the incentive to earn more declines as an increase in taxes makes in pointless. Where does the money for your increased spending come from in addition to all the other left wing spending commitments espoused on this site? The envy and hatred of the rich that is cropping up on this site is hiding the simple maths of the situation - yes there are a handful of very rich people but even their huge income levels are pulled down but the mass of people earning around £50-60k. High levels of spending are unsustainable because there are not enough very rich people to pay for it all.
With regard to a graduate tax in particular, I confess to finding your arguments strange. In no particular order:
1. You are correct that society tends to benefit from greater education in a number of ways but so do individuals - for example after university I found myself a much more person and tended to be more confident than my school friends who did not got to Uni. I have used that confidence to seek better employment and greater pay rises. Yet my friends through their taxes paid for my confidence as well as my education - should I not pay more tax in return for this beyond what they do? I am earning more, faster than they are so I will earn more over my lifetime thanks to their money.
2. You think that a tax would be an even greater disincentive to university than fees? I disagree - a Graduate Tax is a far fairer than fees. Fees have to be repaid no matter what your income but this tax is directly proportional to income which is fairer and easier to come to terms with and makes things like getting a mortgage easier - instead of a £20-30K debt to include in calculations, the income of a graduate would be simple to demonstrate - no additional debt.
3. It may surprise you but many people don't get earn more than the average income by the back door means you highlight. And taxes would be eligible on some of the methods you mention anyway - inheritance tax on the business, taxes on equity trades (and, by the way, increased income tax! Income tax is not just PAYE). I can think of about two dozen friends and colleagues who earn a high rate of tax who only got there through their own hard work. And I don't get the point about a high IQ.
4. Same income - different taxes. This happens already in places like Asda for shelf stacker's. A 18 year old shelf stacker has a different tax threshold that a 66 year old one, yet they perform the same task. I don't see rioting in the street about it so I don't see a problem. If someone the same age as me or younger got to the same earning position as me without needing a degree then all power to them - all I know is that I would not be earning what I earn without my degree and I would be happy to pay a graduate tax as recompense for that fact. I argued for a graduate tax with Lord Dearing as part of his original investigation in the late 90s when I was a student (no fees debt for me!).
We have relatively low levels of income tax compared with many other similar western economies, and lower levels than we have had at various times in the past. This is largely because of New Labour's income tax phobia -- its obsession with avoiding the label of being a tax-and-spend party. It's simply not credible that there's no scope for making the tax structure a good deal more progressive, especially when several thousands of people -- not just managers of financial institutions but also directors of companies who are now paying themselves massive multiples of the average wages of their employees -- are 'earning' enormous sums in salaries, bonuses and income on investments and savings. There's no evidence to support your assertion, beloved of the Taxpayers' Alliance, that if people like this have to pay marginally more tax, they will stop working (or go to somewhere with lower tax rates). People prefer to live in places like London because of the culture and entertainment and transport links that make it a good place in which to live. We're only talking about *marginal* rates of tax: which company director with an income of around a million a year or more, who has been pulling in that sort of money for the past eight or nine years, is going to pack it in because the rate of tax on the top £700K of his income goes up by even as much as 5 or 6%? Even those on a mere £500K a year or so are barely going to notice a few extra percentage points on the top £200K or hereabouts.
I remind you (whoever you are!) that you too are advocating increased taxation. You want to raise quite significantly the rate of tax paid by quite modest earners -- recent graduates. To raise the amount of money required to finance university student teaching costs, the extra tax that would need to be levied on this quite small group of people would have to be pretty substantial. By contrast, I favour raising exactly the same amount of additional revenue, but I would do it by raising extra taxes on a lot more and much richer people, which would not necessitate such a sharp increase over and above what they are paying already. Which would be fairer?
You ask what other 'left-wing causes' I want to fund out of higher taxes on the rich. Well, I would start by reducing the need for steep tax increases by (for example) promptly ending UK participation in the war in Afghanistan, cancelling the plans for replacing Trident and buying two huge aircraft carriers and a fleet of new fighter-bombers, giving up the British nuclear deterrent, sharply reducing the size of the armed forces, reducing the size of the prison population by around a third over two years, scrapping the plan to build (?) five new prisons, ensuring that the number of short-term prison sentences is cut by 75%, and abandoning much of the apparatus of the surveillance society including a reduction in the inflated labour force that operates it. Some of the money thus saved could be applied to a reduction in the budget deficit; some would pay for a better resourced probation service and for community service programmes to replace (much more expensive) prison sentences. Other savings could be used for a renewed fiscal stimulus to try to get the private sector out of bed and functioning again, so as to restore tax revenues and reduce unemployment and other welfare benefit costs atttributable to high unemployment, in the hope of heading off the dreaded double dip.
You point out that those whose above-average incomes are partly attributable to factors other than a university degree pay income tax on those incomes. Of course they do. The point is that they are not being asked to pay a special extra tax, levied exclusively on graduates with identical incomes. Of course tax allowances designed to reduce the burden on families with children or pensioners with low incomes mean that tax due on the same incomes will vary from one category to another. But there's a reason for those allowances: and we're not discussing allowances here, we're talking about an arbitrary additional form of income tax to be imposed on people who are already paying tax on any extra income they may be earning through having a university degree.
You seem to think that I see a graduate tax as a bigger disincentive to aiming for a university education than tuition fees. I don't know what makes you think that (I don't). You imply that we have to have one or the other. I don't know where you got that idea from, either.
You acknowledge that society as a whole benefits from the contribution to the economy and to the social and cultural life of the country made by those with minds, knowledge and skills educated and learned at university level, but you evade the corollary of that -- if it's a general social benefit, society should pay for it collectively -- by making the wholly irrelevant comment that individuals benefit from university education too. So what? Individuals benefit from their schooling (some do, anyway): but no-one is advocating a literacy tax to pay for the cost of state schools -- better not mention that idea to the coalition, though. You want to finance university teaching by a levy on the not especially wealthy few: I want to finance it by a modest all-round increase in general taxation targeted at the less few who are much better able to pay. Nothing tht you have written persuades me that your proposition is fairer.
Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/
The point I was trying to make was that there are comparatively few exceptionally high earners compared to the rest of the country and even raising taxes to 95% on income above any given level would not result in the tens of billions of pounds required to fund this left wing utopia being designed on labourlist.org.
Furthermore, there will be a move of people away at the upper end no matter what you believe – footballers can move (Jermaine Pennant and Iain Harte before him went abroad in part due to lower taxes) and other sports stars need never come – Hussain Bolt running in Paris this year or even Wembley not getting to host the Champions League final due to high cost tax regulations. I did say that there would not be an exodus but if you were an international company looking to conduct international work then would you not be conscious that attracting people could be difficult in a prohibitive tax regime? The bank workers will not up and leave on the first day of a new tax but over time the people being recruited to do that job would be placed in somewhere abroad until such time as it makes no sense to site anyone in that department in the UK. And yes, there will be many people employed at this level that cannot or will not leave the UK. But there will be many others who will.
As you know that one of the reasons for the decline in manufacturing in this country is due to the lower costs in foreign countries – why would international finance be any different (it works like this – an employee says I want to take home £500k a year after tax – pay me what I need to get that. In a higher tax country that would cost the employer more than in a lower tax country). As you said – good riddance to them (and their income tax as well?)
Yes I am advocating an increase in taxation – my own taxing even if I were about to go to uni! I knew that I was arguing against tuition fees (btw sorry I misunderstood what you had written – in your vehemence against a graduate tax I had missed the point you were making that higher education should be free).
However, I don’t believe that higher education should be free so I am looking at the options where individuals contribute to the systems that improve them once they are adults. Therefore the options are either tuition fees (with associated debt) or a graduate tax. I think a graduate tax is the better option of the two. Why should anyone else contribute to what I study? Whilst it benefits society to have a university educated citizens but with some courses that benefit is really really limited (Cinematics) where in others that benefit can be immense (Social Work). The overwhelming benefit of a degree is to the individual who chose to study it so I really believe that they should pay for it. Each according to their ability.....
I actually agree with most of what you state under left wing causes but I have a friend who just became MP for Rosyth so must disagree about the aircraft carriers. Some of what you advocate would involve making public sector employees redundant which on this website seems to be akin to supping with the Devil.
Society benefits from many things that it doesn’t directly pay for like the self-sacrifice of nurses for example, or (and I am pushing it here!) the sacrifice of people like me who could earn more than we do but have opted to work in the voluntary sector trying to benefit the lives of other people. But that was my choice and I don’t know if society is better or worse for it – I could earn more and thus pay more in taxes and if I am honest, someone without a degree could do my job just as well as me so am I keeping someone else from a higher paid job?
Basically, I believe that going to university is an individual’s choice. And therefore it is that individuals responsibility to pay for that choice through taxation
Clearly you know nothing about why manufacturing thrives in high wage economies such as Japan, Germany and France.
The main issue is their politicians don't go around making self fulfilling prophecies about that decline being inevitable due to the relatively higher costs. i.e because they don't say it's inevitable they take the time to make sure it doesn't happen.
From day one, the Japanese auto transplants paid much higher wages than the existing manufacturers. Have you noticed what's happened to them?
Pay has an effect, but it is idiotically simplistic to suggest it is the only issue, otherwise those Japanses factories in Swindon, Burnaston, and Sunderland would have closed, and not the lower wage places in Dagenham, Longbridge, Canley, Luton, Swindon(Rover plant).
I'm assuming that as you appear to at, or soon to go to Uni, that you're not an idiot. But you clearly are very good at parroting recieved wisdom without bothering to think about it yourself.
Do yourself a favour and send your thoughts here. Not those of others. I would hope the capability to think for yourself is still needed even on non-tecnical degrees.
The difference from us and our international competitors is strategic management, followed up with tactical flexibility at a lower everyday level. Something I think you'll find is sadly lacking in British management because of the short term myopia City shareholders compared with the expectations of shareholders in say Japan. i.e all tactis and no strategy.
International competitiveness is directly effected by the City, and currently the output of the City is not an advantage to anyone outside the City.
There used to be a very good excercise in management studies that showed all departments of a company working together produced a better overall outcome, that one department thinking only of it's profits and meeting these at the expense of the performace of the rest of the company.
Anybody with any work experience in making things will understand the need to balance the demands of the finance department with the quality department. In this country the finance department usually gets it's way to the detriment on the rest of the company and the products the customer recieves and is subsequently disappointed with.
Just think of the City as what it used to be during Britains ascent to a world power in the 17th and 18th centuries where it was the fuel stoked the mercantile expansion and the industrial revolution, with what it is now, fixated by itself and taking the cut on deals that don't generate growth in the wider economy.
In fact most mergers and aquisitions you hear of end up generating lower returns in the short term than the seperate entities acheived, unless a virtual monopoly can be acheived in some market segment. And monopolies are disliked in the long term because they are bad for the consumer.
As for graduate tax. I suspect you missed the articles from various LL contributors advocating this as a Labour policy last year.
Fortunately, I notice so far none of the authors appear to have been hypocritical enough to complain about the Tory policy proposals from Vince.
Btw: Less overpaid, useless, muppets, in the Premiership might result in an England team that wants to play and win football matches.
Also, the Premiership is an example of pure Marxism where the workers get the bulk of the income in pay. Is that the new Tory policy do you think?
You could have added "financial services" to your example of "Marxism", where most of the expenditure is on incomes.
Off-topic a bit, but that reminds me of Woody Allen's saying, "A stockbroker is someone who invests your money until it's all gone."
Thank you.
I hope your BBQ during the world cup final wasn't too affected by the unannounced kick boxing programme tha replaced it.
Good point about city salaries.
Like the Woody Allen joke.
Quite frankly, would this be such a disaster. Overpaid prima-donnas, a lot of them, rolling round the field in agony because of the slightest knock. Some of them are more like ham actors.
Degrees do boost earnings and this idea that graduates should get free university education and not pay more in tax seems a little naive.
The "rich" are not an unlimited soirve
But that wasnt really my point, I was highlighting the fact that many people on this site screech 'raise taxes' to pay for this left wing utopia and I was pointing out that although that there are people on vast sums of money, the bulk of the population are not. Certainly a large proportion of voters anyway. And why would people earning £38k vote for a 3% increase in their income tax? I earn £30k and aim to be on a few quid more in a year or two, certainly into the higher rate - so why would I vote to increase my own taxes?
You should question your own conscience. £38k is a perfectly respectable level of salary, IMHO. I would gladly contribute 3p in the £ from my pension.
"£38k is a perfectly respectable level of salary ...."
Depends where one lives, LW : pragmatically, (i) salary ("wage") vs the cost of houses and (ii) depends on when one's first house was purchased.
But, that's another story : the price of houses needs a 30 per cent or so reduction, one way or another, before the UK economy can rebalance.
Whats stopping you then? I firmly believe that anyone being arrogant enough to say what salary is respectable enough (mainly based, I find, on their own limited life) should put their money where their mouth is,
I would go further and anyone voting Labour should be charged an progressive tax that goes straight to the poor. No one here should have a problem with that right?
Welcome to Labour List.
1) We can't keep taxing rich people, just because you use the word "Progressive", it doesn't make it so. If you tax too highly people stop paying (or leave as you suggest) which leads to less tax receipts and less re-distribution of wealth.
You are trotting out something of a canard here.
The current situation in this country is now that 90% of the population are in debt to the other 10%, and 0.3% of the population own 69% of the land, which is a statistic which would shame a banana republic.
What we should be doing is drastically cutting taxation of earned income, and switching it to unearned income and gains from privilege.
So a levy on land rental income - as advocated the other day in the FT by that noted pinko subversive, Martin Wolf - would be a good start.
Then we may add levies on non-renewable resources, and on income from intellectual property, and most of all a levy on limited liability - applied to GROSS corporate revenues.
Such levies are simple, unavoidable, easy to collect, and would also enable massive savings in public and private sector deadweight costs of collection and avoidance of other taxes, which would mostly be abolished.
Of course, for as long as the privileged own and run the country there would not be a cat in hell's chance of implementing such policies, but there is more than one way to skin the cat.
The bottom line is that the middle classes have been the victims of a 30 year recession which has been disguised by a property bubble.
The rich are massively undertaxed, but the approach I advocate would take away none of their existing wealth - what it would do is apply a measure of 'pre-distribution' of their future unearned income and gains derived from privileged property rights.
This is what Martin Wolf wrote in the FT last Friday (9 July) :
"In 1984, I bought my London house. I estimate that the land on which it sits was worth £100,000 in today's prices. Today, the value is perhaps ten times as great. All of that vast increment is the fruit of no effort of mine. It is the reward of owning a location that the efforts of others made valuable, reinforced by a restrictive planning regime and generous tax treatment ...."
Mr Wolf goes on to criticise a "ludicrously restrictive regime of planning controls." He also mentions tha fact that Conservative David Willets, MP, has written about
the "unfairness of wealth across generations", ie today's monstrous level of house prices.
Mr Wolf concludes, "I do not expect any government to dare to wean the English from their ruinous trust in land speculation as the route to wealth .... it is time for change."
Both Mr Wolf and Chris C are correct. There is such a thing as "unearned income."
If you buy land you are making an investment in an asset that can either increase or decrease in value. Now perhaps if you inherit this land then there is an argument that it is unearned. But if you purchase it yourself that argument is moot as you have put your own money in and have taken on the risks that are involved.
You can judge all investment returns to be unearned income if you want but what Chris would like to do is to tax all investments until they are no longer viable simply because of his ideological opposition to gaining wealth through investing in assets.
If you are to buy something you shouldn't be punished just because its value increases over time any more than you would expect to be compensated if it decreased.
Mr Wolf will have an increased rate of CGT to help salve his conscience.
If these concepts were really put into action all it would do is kill off the housing market and damage the economy as investment is one of the main drivers in economic growth.
And by killing off the housing market you would also be punishing those who bought their properties at the inflated price as they would find themselves in negative equity with the value of their asset vastly decreased but the amount that they are liable to pay in mortgage payments still the same as when they put pen to paper.
Predistribution of future unearned income just doesn't make any real economic sense.
"The housing market", regrettably, is now embedded in the English psyche. This nonsense started in 1972, following "Competition and Credit Control."
One of the essences of capitalism is that, in the long term, it reduces the real cost of goods and services due to growing efficiency and productivity.
A roof over one's head is nothing more than a "good" ; it's a utility.
The English, while they fulminate over the price of petrol and diesel ("utilities") have no problem with accepting the ever-upwards price of houses (another "utility").
It's economic and financial nonsense. The additional pounds that are spent on increasing house prices (more accurately, increasing land prices) cannot be spent on goods and services and the resulting employment.
The social value of property still needs to be given much greater thought and recognition - witness the problems experienced by first-time buyers (and those trying to rent) in the SW of England, where the demand for second homes by speculators has created a severe shortage of property.
Rural communities are an endangered species, which doesn't bode well for long-term stewardship of this country's agricultural assets (the land might be owned by a small minority, but its looked after by a whole load more people who work on it, who are being driven out of these rural communities by speculators wanting a rural bolt hole and/or those able to afford the cost of commuting to urban jobs).
Talk of CGT is all well and good, but I suspect that most people investing in property take a long-term view of that investment, removing the property from the market for some considerable time.
I don't need a hedge fund over my head, I do need a roof. Peter Barnard is right, there is a significant imbalance that needs correcting (and yes, even if that results in my own property 'asset' falling significantly in value).
"Peter Barnard is right ...."
Well, that makes four of us .... you, me, Chris C and Martin Wolf. Small acorns an' all that ....
I enjoyed the rest of your comment, as well. The greatest inhibition on the supply of houses is probably "planning laws", aided and abetted by NIMBYism.
And yes, you are absolutely correct : a roof over one's head is a necessity in our northern clime, and the possession (freehold or leashold) thereby should not be subject to "market whims."
One way or another, the price of residential property needs to adjust by 30 per cent, downwards, before we can return to a balanced economy.
And this is the problem. The UK population likes the idea of Swedish or French level services, but only if they can be paid for by American levels of taxation.
To pay for public goods, taxation will have to be more progressive than it is now and the rich will have to pay more. If private aspiration is all we are about, well then we may as well pack up and go home, because that is the ConDem belief too. We do need to have a different approach.
To pay for services, you have to tax.
"To pay for public goods, taxation will have to be more progressive than it is now and the rich will have to pay more."
That's not the only route, Mike.
The distribution of income - a human construction - can be adjusted so that the "man on the top desk of the Clapham omnibus" receives a decent, living wage so that he can pay for what is essential to live a life in dignity.
Regrettably, neither the Conservatives, post-1979 and Labour, post-1997 accepted this.
But I do think that taxation is not progressive enough
" .... taxation is not progressive enough."
In the times that we are now living, you are correct.
When we arrive at that rational stage when people are paid a decent wage, on which we both seem to agree, "progressive taxation" will be unnecessary ....
But that's nothing new. Liverpool's Labour party was once run by the Braddock's, who were combative in style but staunchly right wing in Labour terms