Has Britain's Social Contract become Anti-Social ?

For nearly 100 years Britain had it's own American dream.  If you worked hard and did the right thing, Britain would be a country where you would be rewarded with success.

Success being a good job, a decent home and the chance to raise a family. In a nutshell - "a secure future".

Yet today the social contract is broken.

For the young, there's little prospect of owning your own home even if you have a good well paid job.  It's a real prospect that you will have to live with your parents until you are in your thirties or even older.  If you are fortunate then the bank of mum and dad may be able to help you get your foot on the property ladder.

If you work hard you are taxed substantially whilst those on benefits often have a better standard of living than those who are working.  For many playing by the rules means "surviving" not "living". This unfairness breeds resentment.

Raising a family for those who plan ahead and think about the economics of children soon realise it's an economic impossibility. Prohibitive costs. This is reflected in declining birthrates for UK citizens.

For those in their 50s there's active incentives not to work. Punitive taxes means those who have managed to accumulate wealth are opting out and choose not to work rather than play the Governments/Tax-man's game. The rewards are simply not there. Why work for free for the government from Jan to Sept and only benefits for the months Oct-Dec. It makes no sense.  With 51% of the working population working for the government, the few people that do work have a lot of other people to carry.  The Government does not manufacture anything (other than lies) and government is not a product other countries want to buy.

We are seeing the emergence of pensioners who sell their family home to fund living on cruises until the money runs out.  If there are no assets then the state will have to provide for them.

The social contract where the state will provide a safety net is viewed as unfair.  Asylum seekers and illegal immigrants often jump the queue for social housing whilst hard working families wait for years or even decades on council waiting lists.

"If you go to university you will get a good well paid job" is for many young people - a myth.  People with degrees are stacking supermarket shelves.  They are saddled with large student loan debts yet their peers who entered the workforce at 18 are more likely to have progressed further without the putative costs of student debt.

We were promised free healthcare from the NHS yet the costs have ballooned whilst standards of health care delivered by the NHS have plummeted. 

How has Britain ended up in this Anti-Social farce of a social contract?

Firstly politicians decided that the demographic trough of an aged population needed mass immigration of low paid, unskilled workers as the solution.  Politicians thought this was the right thing to do but the reality is these migrants are a burden and not an asset. There seems to be no end to the torrent of migrants that fail to add value to Britain.  Each of these migrants has their own dream and aspiration that Britain will give them.  Maybe their life is better than where they came from but their offspring will view that the Social contract is broken.  The shear volume of these migrants is putting a strain on services, housing and just about everything.  The population has grown massively but economic output has not increased.  Output per capital has at best stagnated. The UK is poorer in real terms by 7% compared to 1995. If Britain became a US state it would be the poorest state by a long way.

The strain on public services has highlighted the need for further spend. More doctors, more hospitals, more houses, more prisons, more roads etc.  This all need money.

The low paid migrants can't afford to pay for this hence calls to "tax the rich".  Well the top 1% of earners already pay 29% of all taxes.   If you tax the rich further they either leave or opt out (they are rich enough to not have to work). The net result is less tax income rather than less. We are already seeing the exodus of 1,000s of millionaires per week moving to more rich friendly regimes like Italy.

Successive left wing conservative governments and now socialist labour government realise they dont have enough money to solve the problems so are hitting the credit card.  Unfortunately the credit card interest rates means that increasingly more-and-more tax income is spent simply servicing the debt of previous stupid politician decisions.  The money was spent but there's nothing to show for it or worse there are persistent liabilities eg PFI.

For the young there's no incentive to strive.  If you work harder to earn more money you can end up with less money after tax than if you didnt work harder.  The perverse economics are a disincentive. If there's no prospect of a rewarded future in the UK, then the young (which we absolutely need in order to keep the Ponzi scheme from collapsing) are increasingly going to consider emigrating to country where the social contract is honoured.  If they dont emigrate then they may decide to opt out and fall into the generous benefit safety net. 

Who are the most disgruntled?  Is it the youth? What will be their reaction?  Fight or flight?  Will they flee the UK or are we headed towards civil unrest?

Is this the natural demise of any "advanced" society?

The population has little trust for government and indeed many public institutions eg the police. 

This has to be first priority of government to restore trust.  That's going to be hard since politicians are compulsive liars.

The second priority must be cost control.  If the populous is being asked to pay more tax yet receive less then the same must be true of government.  The state has simply grown too big.  The scope of what the "Nanny" state thinks they are responsible for has grown yet failed to deliver anything.  There needs to be wholesale brutal cuts to public expenditure. We simply cannot afford to pay £129 BILLION per year in interest payments (set to increase by a further £14 BILLION per year after Rachel's latest spending spree in the budget "cuts" in June 26).  

We need to live within our means. Tax income is 33% of GDP but the government is spending 45% of GDP each year. Each year, successive governments have simply borrowed about 12% of GDP to make up for the shortfall resulting in sovereign debt balloon of more than 100% of GDP. That's £2.8 TRILLION of debt. The cost of servicing this vast debt pile is growing and becoming a bigger and bigger percentage of tax income - currently 14.7% but it will grow. If the current trend continues it will be over 30% of tax receipts by 2037. We simply cannot continue hitting the credit card forever.

It's unlikely we are going to see a government capable (or willing) to address these issues. It's beginning to look like Britain will disintegrate further into chaos and become a third world nation.

The Ponzi scheme is starting to unravel.