The Thinking ‘Kat: When Bears and Meerkats Agree

One of my favourite people to follow on Twitter is The Bear. It is abundantly clear that this bear has claws, and many a hard-right conservative who has attempted to cross him has discovered his claws are razor-sharp.

The Bear also runs a website, Bearly Politics, through which he expands his thoughts and witty takedowns of conservative folly. He has kindly granted me permission to quote from his latest post, which concerns an exchange with one Peter McCormack. It seems Mr McCormack is a shrill for the rich, sycophantically believing we should be fawning at their feet, and showing gratitude for the opportunities they convey upon the commoners.

How much appreciation are we supposed to show? How much ass-kissing are we meant to do? Yes, the wealthy technically pay more tax, but they also horde more wealth! In a prior post of mine, I took a good look at what the richest Americans have, and what could be accomplished with a mere fraction of that. Instead, The Bear makes an astute observation:

Thank them.

For existing, presumably. For blessing us with their divine capital. For graciously allowing us to bask in the warm glow of their wealth while they build rocket ships for joyrides, offshore their profits through seventeen shell companies, spend £40m on a wedding and call writing a cheque to their mate’s foundation “philanthropy.”

How very generous of them. How utterly selfless.

Anyway.

Whilst the rich spaff money up the wall on hideously expensive vanity projects, splash out on yet another massive yacht, and host lavish weddings, the rest of us are not so fortunate, despite whatever ill-conceived notions Mr McCormack may hold about our lords and betters benefactors.

When The Bear mentions he is quite happy to actually pay more tax, considering his own relative wealth, someone decided to apply what they thought was a clever ‘gotcha’ moment:

In my response, I pointed out the incredibly privileged position I have that I am, in fact, in the top 10% (that’s anyone earning above £60k a year in the UK for the record – not quite yachts and private jets), and that I please do not wish to receive thank you notes or applause (because that’s weird). I added that I would be fine – content, even – to pay a bit more tax. Especially if we finally got around to making National Insurance progressive.

And that, my friends, triggered them. Badly.

You know the “them” who I’m talking about.

Of course, this wasn’t the ‘gotcha’ that they had hoped…

The people who think tax is theft, billionaires are just misunderstood visionaries, and anyone who supports public goods should be personally topping up the Treasury like it’s a GoFundMe. The ones who shout “you can just donate more!” like it’s the ultimate gotcha, while presumably afterwards sniggering at themselves for how well they’ve owned someone. The ones who still think the tax system works like an itemised bill and forget that the NHS isn’t just a line on a spreadsheet – it’s a living, breathing social contract.

And I think it’s worth exploring this reaction, because we need to prod at the actual logic behind the “just send a cheque” wails – and why it spectacularly misses the point.

To apply my own thought process here, the idea of ‘pay for it yourself’ is the sort of logic that leads us toward a US-style healthcare system, which as anyone with eyes and ears can tell you, is a disastrous one. Whilst the NHS is far from perfect, the number of people who are bankrupted by medical bills is precisely zero. This is because here in the UK, and in most of the rest of the world, there is an understanding that everyone – rich and poor alike – benefits from a nationalised healthcare service. Instead of a strange sort of social Darwinism (and isn’t that ironic, considering how many conservatives are also devout Christians!), the NHS is a fair system to all, as opposed to a privilege where your money determines your social worth.

Some people view tax as theft, and see the robbers – the government – as being the absolute last people we should trust with public money. It’s certainly true that governments can be incompetent and corrupt, but then again, should we trust the philanthropy and mercy of the rich? See my earlier linked post; it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the USA, easily within reach if even one of the top 100 richest Americans chose to do so, yet nothing happens. Apparently, ending a serious social problem is unfair, and letting Elon Musk waste money with exploding rockets is absolutely fair. Privatisation has proven to be a massive failure too.

To return to Britain’s shores, it is already those who are less affluent who bear the greatest burden. The millionaires and billionaires can absorb higher tax rates, and remain millionaires and billionaires. Cutting the benefits of those who are already living paycheque-to-paycheque is an act of cruelty. It’s absurd. It does not provide public services with the sort of funding they actually need.

To apply the homelessness example to the UK, Crisis estimates it would cost £1.9 billion to end this problem. If you take a look at The Sunday Times Rich List 2025, any of the top 10 could afford this, and remain billionaires by a comfortable margin. It seems people like Mr McCormack would prefer instead to blow smoke up the backsides of the billionaires, and fawn over them, instead of holding them to account and reminding them they live in a society that also pays their wages.

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