VAT on Private Schools Kicks In

[scifisam]

To bring this back to politics, I think it's a dead end politically to condemn people for their individual choices when they opt out of public systems and pay for private services instead. It's shit that anyone does that or feels the need to. But it's the system that's wrong, not the individuals within it.

Agreed. Though I feel free to think their reasons for their choices are sometimes misguided or even plain wrong, and, if I'm honest, choosing private school - purely to give them a leg-up, not because they have SEN or there are no other options, etc - certainly doesn't make me think better about them. I'm sure Mr Retro can live with that. If he's on here, he already has issues with it himself, ethically, or knows why other people do.

Especially on this board, if you out yourself as choosing private school in order to get privilege, and then complaining about the loss of a tax break on the fees, and nobody has a go at you at all, then you've basically got away with talking about how great Ramadan is on Stormfront.

And I'd prefer not to have the NHS stuck in here TBH. They're different subjects.

 

[redsquirrel]

Left to individual choice, of course people will pay for these advantages if they can.

That's not a moral failing, it's the logic of the system we live in.

We have to remove that choice and change the logic of the system. That's a massive ask.

Sure it is structural issue and we need to organise to change that. But that does not completely override the actions of individuals - lots of people who could afford private education don't take it.
Scabbing also gives people an advantage, but would we say that it is the logic of the systems that there is no individual agency in scabs taking such a deeply anti-social action? I bloody well wouldn't/don't.

Part of the creation of solidarity is the construction of a set of communal norms - it was a very good thing that scabbing wasn't viewed as a individual choice but an anti-social action, and it was the development of that norm that helped create changes to the system.
The removal of the choice for education and changing of the logic of the system will be more likely to happen if the anti-social nature of the use of private education is highlighted and deepened. If we accept that education is just a matter of individual choice then that makes it more likely that the system won't be changed.

Of course simply condemning people may not be the best strategic or tactical move, the same as calling scabs cunts to they face is not always going to be the best tactic to use on a lot of modern picket lines - but some sort of challenge should be made.

(On a personal level I'm sorry to hear that this measure will affect you negatively chil)

 

[kabbes]

I hope it goes without saying that I agree with the many good points that have been raised about the problems for society of having a private school system. So instead, it seems worth pointing out that private schools are not necessarily a great choice for kids and parents either. I thought that this article in the i paper was surprisingly cogent about the factors against private schools that middle-class parents should note.

I went to private school, my kids went to state - these are the biggest differences

As the new VAT charge on school fees kicks in, Joanna Moorhead says she backs the Government's plan - and parents should stop trying to buy social advantage

inews.co.uk

Some bits pulled out:

What we wanted for our girls was to feel part of the community in which they were being raised – and private schools don’t always give you that. Being at boarding school meant I was separated from the neighbourhood where my family lived, and to this day I feel disconnected from it, in a way I suspect would be different if I’d lived there through those all-important teenage years. For young people who go to private day schools, as my husband did, you’re part of a select milieu – not ideal, if you want your children to feel part of the wider society rather than cordoned-off in a privileged section of it.

Our girls went to the church primary school five minutes’ walk from our house, and then to three different comprehensive schools – all of which delivered, and how, compared with our private schools. Yes our classes were smaller, and the buildings were grander, but at the end of the day our girls did as well or better academically than either of us.

And an important difference from my own education was how involved parents were in the life of these schools: in my childhood, I was dropped off at the start of term and collected at the end, and my parents didn’t participate at all in the way the school was run.

Private schools can put pressure on a family in lots of undesirable ways: I’ve seen it in families I know, worrying about how to pay the school fees, and I remember it in my own childhood, when my father’s business took a dive.

The fact is that private education involves financial risk that can impact on the stresses in a family; and goodness knows, raising children comes with plenty of non-negotiable stresses.

Parental time is the most important resource in a family with young children; and there’s clearly a pay-off in terms of time spent with them when they’re little if you have to work even longer hours, in even more demanding jobs, to pay school bills. I would not have wanted to add additional financial worries into the mix.

It’s a vicious circle, too: parents “sacrificing” to pay for spiralling school fees puts even greater pressure on children to “do well” (ie, to get good grades). Education is about a whole host of things, of which grades are only one, and certainly not the most important factor.

(She also talks about the importance of the 'resource' that middle-class parents can bring to a state school. A very neoliberal framing, but the underlying concept is a reasonable one. However, that's already been covered better by others on this thread).

 

[kabbes]

So the question: What should people be permitted to spend their savings on?

Your framing of these kinds of issues is incredibly neoliberal, weltweit, as is encapsulated by this quote. Why is that "the question"? For example, why is the question not, "what are the principles on which we want a society to be structured, and what types of institution produce those principles?"

 

[Mr Retro]

Agreed. Though I feel free to think their reasons for their choices are sometimes misguided or even plain wrong, and, if I'm honest, choosing private school - purely to give them a leg-up, not because they have SEN or there are no other options, etc - certainly doesn't make me think better about them. I'm sure Mr Retro can live with that. If he's on here, he already has issues with it himself, ethically, or knows why other people do.

Especially on this board, if you out yourself as choosing private school in order to get privilege, and then complaining about the loss of a tax break on the fees, and nobody has a go at you at all, then you've basically got away with talking about how great Ramadan is on Stormfront.

And I'd prefer not to have the NHS stuck in here TBH. They're different subjects.

Good post this. I have chosen private for reasons already stated. I have issues ethically of course because it is a leg up like you say and an advantage.

Education is something I care deeply about. I had hoped to discuss how the system could realistically be improved and I couldn’t have that conversation without being honest. People don’t seem to want that conversation which is fair enough.

 

[Mr Retro]

Regarding complaining about the extra fees, I’m not, and the parents I know aren’t either. It’s been baked in to everybodies thinking for a while now as everybody knew Labour would get into government and this would be an easy populist thing to do in their first budget.

 

[edcraw]

...this would be an easy populist thing to do in their first budget.

You haven't noticed how much negative coverage this has got? Very clear (and unsurprising) that large sections of the media are privately educated or privately educating their kids from the non stop moaning this has got in the press, on TV and on the radio. Struggle to recall anyone actually defending this.

 

[weltweit]

Your framing of these kinds of issues is incredibly neoliberal, weltweit, as is encapsulated by this quote. Why is that "the question"? For example, why is the question not, "what are the principles on which we want a society to be structured, and what types of institution produce those principles?"

I don't know about my question being neoliberal, I do think taking the view of the individual can sometimes produce an interesting perspective.

For example, (means testing) there are two individuals, me and another, both earning the same salaries but I save for the future and my colleague drinks his salary. We are both made redundant at the same time, my colleague gets financial support from benefits immediately because he has no savings while I am means tested and have to spend my hard won savings before I get any support.

 

[philosophical]

The VAT for a private business like Pure Gym against the non VAT for private schools is where the conversation ought to sit.
The conversation about the nature of education and socialising is different. And it is complex and difficult and contradictory.
Mark Twain observed that Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn would rather be out and about in nature, or sitting chewing on a grass stalk whilst dangling their bare feet in the Mississippi and trash talking, than attend the school.

 

[chilango]

Sure it is structural issue and we need to organise to change that. But that does not completely override the actions of individuals - lots of people who could afford private education don't take it.
Scabbing also gives people an advantage, but would we say that it is the logic of the systems that there is no individual agency in scabs taking such a deeply anti-social action? I bloody well wouldn't/don't.

Part of the creation of solidarity is the construction of a set of communal norms - it was a very good thing that scabbing wasn't viewed as a individual choice but an anti-social action, and it was the development of that norm that helped create changes to the system.
The removal of the choice for education and changing of the logic of the system will be more likely to happen if the anti-social nature of the use of private education is highlighted and deepened. If we accept that education is just a matter of individual choice then that makes it more likely that the system won't be changed.

Of course simply condemning people may not be the best strategic or tactical move, the same as calling scabs cunts to they face is not always going to be the best tactic to use on a lot of modern picket lines - but some sort of challenge should be made.

(On a personal level I'm sorry to hear that this measure will affect you negatively chil)

Agree with all of that.

...don't be sorry about any impact on me. It's just a job.

 

[kabbes]

I don't know about my question being neoliberal,

“What should an individual be able to spend their savings on?” is the very essence of neoliberalism. The things it takes for granted economically (such as the notion of individual savings divorced from any social context) and philosophically (such as the primacy of liberty) are neoliberal principles.

I do think taking the view of the individual can sometimes produce an interesting perspective.

There is no boundary between “individual” and “society”. The structures of the social field are embodied by the individual agent and the individual agent’s actions structure the social field. So you can’t divorce the two, for example by looking only at what we call an individual’s “decisions” as if they have no social context within which the problematisation and solution space was framed.

For example, (means testing) there are two individuals, me and another, both earning the same salaries but I save for the future and my colleague drinks his salary. We are both made redundant at the same time, my colleague gets financial support from benefits immediately because he has no savings while I am means tested and have to spend my hard won savings before I get any support.

For example, here you’re taking for granted the entire institutional process of “redundancy” and the consequences thereof. It’s just a given, the way that the world is and must forever be.

 

[Silas Loom]

“What should an individual be able to spend their savings on?” is the very essence of neoliberalism. The things it takes for granted economically (such as the notion of individual savings divorced from any social context) and philosophically (such as the primacy of liberty) are neoliberal principles.

Savings have existed for as long as there have been durable units of exchange. We know that because archaeologists find caches. We don’t know exactly how long there have been concepts of personal choice in how to make use of these units of exchange, or of limitations in those choices, but they must, surely, predate liberalism, which is a product of the Enlightenment, and in the unlikely event that someone is able to produce a meaningful definition of neoliberalism, usage would be limited to very recent contexts.

@Weltweit’s statement would have been meaningful in the bronze age; yours is painfully of its time.

 

[DotCommunist]

that oddbod peter hitchens does anti private school lines that sound startlingly leftish from such a figure as he. But of course he then goes on to lament the loss of 'our grammars' because the skimming was good in his eyes, and right. If there are any gems in the mud why they must be cut, polished and set in the crown. The mud stays the mud. Its a conservative view but enough of a heterodox one to todays right that he winds up his audience. I suspect thats the point.

My views on the matter are well known. Turn them all into housing. Especially eton.

 

[kabbes]

Savings have existed for as long as there have been durable units of exchange. We know that because archaeologists find caches. We don’t know exactly how long there have been concepts of personal choice in how to make use of these units of exchange, or of limitations in those choices, but they must, surely, predate liberalism, which is a product of the Enlightenment, and in the unlikely event that someone is able to produce a meaningful definition of neoliberalism, usage would be limited to very recent contexts.

@Weltweit’s statement would have been meaningful in the bronze age; yours is painfully of its time.

You think that in feudal times, the concept that anyone should be at liberty to buy anything at any time — with no justification or accountability of status or stratification by class — was something everybody would have recognised as the natural order of things?

 

[kabbes]

Also, a cache of valuable items is in no way the same thing as the modern notion of “savings”, which comes from an entire financialised ecosystem, including institutional protections of what has been “saved”.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

a meaningful definition of neoliberalism

Wealth is created through the investment of capital. Capital is invested with the intention of maximising returns on that capital, and this in turn maximises wealth creation (in the eyes of the believers - this last bit is bollocks even on their terms, but hey ho, nobody said the definition would be coherent). There Is No Other Way.

 

[Winot]

Wealth is created through the investment of capital. Capital is invested with the intention of maximising returns on that capital, and this in turn maximises wealth creation (in the eyes of the believers - this last bit is bollocks even on their terms, but hey ho, nobody said the definition would be coherent). There Is No Other Way.

Isn't this just capitalism?

 

[Silas Loom]

You think that in feudal times, the concept that anyone should be at liberty to buy anything at any time — with no justification or accountability of status or stratification by class — was something everybody would have recognised as the natural order of things?

Clearly not, as I said above that the very concept of limitations on those theoretical affordances of money obviously predates “(neo)liberalism”.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Isn't this just capitalism?

It includes a belief that capitalism of this kind maximises wealth and that this should be the aim. Society is and should be run for the benefit of the wealth-creators (capitalists). It also includes certain unspoken assumptions about how we define things like 'wealth'.

There are other ways of looking at capitalism. Viewing it as wealth extraction rather than wealth creation, for example. Not trickle down, but flood up.

 

[weltweit]

“What should an individual be able to spend their savings on?” is the very essence of neoliberalism. The things it takes for granted economically (such as the notion of individual savings divorced from any social context) and philosophically (such as the primacy of liberty) are neoliberal principles.

kabbes you don't half write some bollocks. It isn't even a statement, it is just a question, and one it seems you and a lot of people rather struggle to answer.

There is no boundary between “individual” and “society”.

Well then you should have no difficulty in answering the earlier question then?

The structures of the social field are embodied by the individual agent and the individual agent’s actions structure the social field. So you can’t divorce the two,

I don't care to divorce the two, take the question as being about an individual or about society it doesn't matter but you have produced a volume of words with no attempt to answer the question.

for example by looking only at what we call an individual’s “decisions” as if they have no social context within which the problematisation and solution space was framed.

You can't have it both ways, in the space of a couple of sentences you have gone from individual is the same as society back to individual only.

For example, here you’re taking for granted the entire institutional process of “redundancy” and the consequences thereof. It’s just a given, the way that the world is and must forever be.

Yes, tens of thousands of Britons experience being made redundant, it is a very common thing.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Wealth is created through the investment of capital. Capital is invested with the intention of maximising returns on that capital, and this in turn maximises wealth creation (in the eyes of the believers - this last bit is bollocks even on their terms, but hey ho, nobody said the definition would be coherent). There Is No Other Way.

Of course there is, the same way people have always acquired vast wealth... theft.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Of course there is, the same way people have always acquired vast wealth... theft.

You make big money by owning, not by doing, basically. And yes, all ownership has its origins in an act of theft from the commons.

Within a neoliberal mindset, all of these unexamined notions are simply taken as a given, natural order of things. Some own, others don't. Incredibly, it is those who own, not those who work, who are credited with the creation of wealth within such a mindset. It's quite a naked act of sophistry really.

 

[Silas Loom]

Wealth is created through the investment of capital. Capital is invested with the intention of maximising returns on that capital, and this in turn maximises wealth creation (in the eyes of the believers - this last bit is bollocks even on their terms, but hey ho, nobody said the definition would be coherent). There Is No Other Way.

This has been a plausible viewpoint ever since banking has existed and been permitted by monarchs, so it can’t be the essence of “neoliberalism”.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This has been a plausible viewpoint ever since banking has existed and been permitted by monarchs, so it can’t be the essence of “neoliberalism”.

I don't think that's really true. The primacy of shareholder concerns - the elevation of the maximisation of shareholder returns to become the moral good of a CEO's existence - is arguably rather a new perspective.

 

[Silas Loom]

I don't think that's really true. The primacy of shareholder concerns - the elevation of the maximisation of shareholder returns to become the moral good of a CEO's existence - is arguably rather a new perspective.

Who do you think imports notions of moral goodness into shareholder value maximisation? Not even the CEOs or their mums would try that on.

I’m now going to offer all the chocolate left over in the house at the stroke of midnight to anyone who can come up with a meaningful definition of neoliberalism which demonstrably requires this novel term to distinguish it from laissez-faire regulation, or mercantilism, or capitalism.

If nobody claims the chocolate, I’m going to assume that people who talk about neoliberalism simply mean capitalism, but they are worried that railing against capitalism as the source of all woes looks a bit silly, all these years after Marx, and after so many ill-conceived attempts to eradicate it rather than tame it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Whatever we say, you're going to poopoo it, though.

I think the idea of the moral imperative to maximise returns and the way it has become the sine qua non of a CEO's existence is crucial here. It has also become the way to measure people's worth to a society. Look no further than UnitedHealth for an example of this. Fuck everyone else over - customers and staff - as much as you can in order to maximise returns. In various settings, make the land barren, deplete resources, fuck up future generations, in order to maximise returns.

Meanwhile, the politician's job in such a scenario is to oil the wheels that keep the profits flowing. Infrastructure, worker health, education, for example, exist with the ultimate purpose of maximising returns. To the neoliberal mindset, as exemplified, for example, by Rachel Reeves, these are virtuous circles. And they're the only circles available. Nothing else can work. Nothing else can even be conceived.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The commodification of everything. The turning of everyone into capitalists, to the extent that just to get an education you have to take out a debt for which you anticipate a return on your investment in yourself. The naturalisation of the process to the extent that it isn't even noticed that this is what is happening. Inequality as a moral good - you didn't invest in yourself, therefore you are poorer than me because I invested in myself and deserve the returns on my investment.

 

[JimW]

It's also that it's no longer seriously contested by any social actors with clout, aristocracy and church, then social and political movements, all defeated.

 

[Silas Loom]

Commodification has decreased considerably since the invention of welfare and the decline of slavery. It ebbs and flows: I lament the passing of student loans too, as I expect does Rachel Reeves, although evidently she isn’t convinced that tertiary education should be prioritised over early years care and rebuilding a crumbling schools estate.

But I don’t see anything that would distinguish Rachel Reeves in her attitudes to growth and tax from any of her predecessors in the last few hundred years.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It's also that it's no longer seriously contested by any social actors with clout, aristocracy and church, then social and political movements, all defeated.

It's anti-aristocracy. It is meritocracy.

It isn't something that can be reduced to a pithy one-liner, but its typical characteristics are clear enough.