By Olivia Murray
Time for the British people to brush up on Karl Marx and communist history.
From Will Hutton at The Guardian comes a new editorial in which he identifies a problem, i.e. greedy farmers who “have hoarded land for too long”, before he announces the solution to break-up the control that these little menaces have over their own property, so they will no longer “be enabled to own it in perpetuity”… which is more government and taxation of course.
Naturally, the farmers and landowners aren’t sold on this Labour Party idea but as Hutton reports, this new progressive inheritance tax will really only affect about 500 individuals, and it’s quite a compromising tax after all, so all the fuss is just ungrateful grumbling. Here’s what Hutton writes, in his own words:
Half a million people die every year. Under the reforms to inheritance tax relief on agricultural land proposed in the budget, about 500 individuals who inherit land worth more than £2m (£3m if they were married to the deceased) will join the rest of society and have inheritance tax levied on their bequest – albeit at half the rate, with an enlarged exemption and 10 years to pay it, concessions not made to the rest of us. How fortunate and privileged are they?
What a generous government that fines people just for owning land but then gives them ten years to pay off the debt! Here’s what else Hutton has to say about the scheme:
The hoarding of land that has gone on since the bung was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, which has so steadily driven up land prices and farmers’ rents, will at last be checked as some of the larger estates are obliged to sell parcels of land to pay inheritance tax, as they did before 1984 without the world falling in, rather than be enabled to own it in perpetuity.
Will this also apply to the estates of Charles III and his progeny? No, no it won’t, at least according to a Daily Mail item published earlier this month. For context, Charles III is the world’s largest landowner, and the “royal family” combined owns “more than 6,600,000,000 acres of land around the world” which amounts to “1/6 of the surface of the planet.” Oh, and if you’re wondering why Charles and his descendants get a pass on inheritance tax, despite owning the most land out of any person or institution in the world with properties that are “cash cow[s]” and “money-maker[s]”, they cut a deal with the government back in 1993, because as “conservative” then-Prime Minister John Major stated at the time, “the monarchy being salami-sliced away by capital taxation through generations” is something that “few people” in England “would welcome.” But it’s okay to “salami-slice” away the wealth of the little guy, right?
Yeah, this isn’t about a wealth distribution from most privileged to least privileged, it’s about wealth distribution from the middle class to the uber-wealthy, using “the sores of discontent” (recall Saul Alinsky’s strategy) of angry, useful idiots as the vehicle.
As you might remember, one of the most revealing themes of The Communist Manifesto, the communist revolution can only “be effected … by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property,” which is why Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro all came for private property, and particularly farmers—farmers feed people, and controlling the food supply means controlling the population.
Hutton says this “hoarding” of land has gone on for too long, but you know what’s actually gone on for “too long” though? Repackaging the neverending war against farmers, and the general public failing to notice that it’s the same old communistic song and dance. Do the British people supporting these politicians and policies realize what comes next? Apparently not enough.