The tax on life

Western governments have long been exploitative, previously of foreign citizens, but now increasingly more of their own.

In the United Kingdom, assuming we earn £34,000 per annum, we are expected to contribute about 20% of our income in income tax & national insurance alone. After income tax and natural insurance, we are left with approximately £26,655. We must also pay council tax, which for the cheapest band in London (Band A), the fee is £994 a year, almost 4%. This, coupled with bills, food & drink, and if you are unlucky enough to have the burden of driving you can add insurance, road tax, MOTs, and fuel, to the long list of expenses, this is around 18% of after-tax income. Taking the average rent for London at £880 a month (£10,560 a year, assuming you live with one other person) means roughly 40% of your after-tax income is taken up by rent. This leaves us with 18% disposable income.

The Pacification of Society

We are then coerced to forget that the elites of our society effectively take 80% of our income, enriching themselves while we all suffer in the process. This coercion is covertly hidden through consumerism, which inevitably pacifies any rational resistance to this extortionate system of capitalism. We toil, just to live, while those at the top absorb our income and live extravagant lives, taking our money to provide us with life’s necessities in the modern age, keeping a handsome profit.

While we struggle to live, they gorge themselves in the wealth that is only made possible by the masses. They keep it for themselves, while paying extremely low wages. They give us just enough to pacify any resistance to this dystopian world, alluring us with ‘luxuries’ to fulfill any ‘free’ time we may have.

Enjoy video games? Watching Netflix?

These services are all part of the problem. They are freely accessible, at any time of the day. We have no time to resist because we are fixated on escapism, preferring to retreat into a world of imagination, rather than fixing the one we reside in. Companies and the government can exploit us for all of our hard work, precisely because no one is resisting these transgressions. As a society, we are too caught up in playing the next game, watching the next cult hit, and gorging ourselves in the bait our elites are feeding us.

The rich keep getting richer while the rest of us struggle precisely because we are doing nothing to improve our situation.

Prior to Margaret Thatcher, workers successfully resisted attempts by the elites to subvert their wealth. The miners are a great forgotten example of such courage, as they successfully campaigned for increased wages to counteract inflation, ensuring they didn’t descend further into poverty. They had no video games, they didn’t have freely accessible streaming services. They were bonded through a family unit, and were conscious of their wealth. Figures like Arthur Scargill stood up for what they believed in and defeated the government. People listened to them, precisely because it was in their own interest to do so, and they had no pacifying agents to subvert attempts at resistance.

Thatcher destroyed the trade unions, and with this, ushered in a new focus on the City, privatising the states assets. This paved the way for the financially wealthy to use their newly acquired businesses to begin exploiting the people. This combined with the rapid growth in technology, leading to more luxuries being readily available helped to pacify resistance. The introduction of personal computers and the internet was a blessing in disguise. While we all love the internet, and the endless possibilities it has provided us with, it has inevitably pacified us all.

Why would we go out into the bitter English weather to strike, when instead we can just go home and play Lost Ark or the new COD with our friends? Why would we sacrifice our wages, to protest the inequalities of our world, when we can just escape into an imagined one through Netflix? If we strike, how on earth will I be able to afford the new PlayStation, or all of my streaming subscriptions? How can I take advantage of the new Amazon Prime deals, if I don’t keep working?

People are pacified by these luxuries, as if they don’t work, they can’t afford to maintain their ‘leisurely’ expenditures. If people strike, they don’t have time or the means to enjoy the few benefits our modern society offers. This is in effect, the great lie. We are being coerced and manipulated to accept a below average life, stricken with poverty and expenses, to enjoy the ‘luxuries’ our masters have so graciously made possible.

The issue isn’t that we don’t have the means to strike. If the masses rose up in a combined effort with the services industry, and the manufacturing industry, the world would crumble. Society would grind to a halt, and the elites would no longer be able to control the people, as they need us for their services to function. The only caveat is, we will have to give up our luxuries. Clearly, that is not something the general public is willing to do.

The issue can succinctly be summed up as the following; we absolutely have the means to strike, but not the mind set that must go with it.

In order to improve the world we have been seduced by, we must dismantle the façade which ravages society and sacrifice our luxuries to successfully destroy economic inequality.