We are scared to face the real issue – it’s all about inequality
Will Hutton makes some valid points in his analysis of inequality but fails to provide any solution other than suggesting that politicians must rebuild the institutions they have so carelessly trashed.
To confront inequality head on we need to reform a tax system that punishes effort and enterprise but rewards unproductive speculation and unearned income. We need to ease the crippling burden of taxes on wages, purchases and buildings and instead collect the unimproved site value of land – thus returning to the community the value it creates and providing the natural funds for community services and improved infrastructure. At the very least this reform would encourage the development of vacant and underused sites for the thousands of new houses urgently required to provide a basic human need. Collecting land location value would also be a fair way to redistribute wealth and start to redress inequality.
Michael J Hawes
Newark-on-Trent