Levelling Up

The Fiscal Way

Part 1

The much-vaunted levelling-up means one thing, the putting of more money in the pockets of those who have the least so that a point is reach when, no matter where you might live, the same standard-of-living as a minimum is enjoyed by all. It is, of course, impossible for the simple reason that standard-of-living is a (personalised) concept. Your standard is not mine. Your circumstances are not mine. So we use a proxy and that is money, which even then can be frustrated. The "London Allowance" is a case in point.

However, there are two things. The first is that the "London Allowance" and similar can be removed. Indeed, if a free market is an aim, it is a distorter and should be. The second is that for all it faults money is probably as good a comparitor as many and probably as good as it gets. That being the case there is an immediate argument for a standard income, i.e. that everyone receives the same amount of money per time period, week, month year, no matter what work they do. However, the idea has an inherent problem in a capitalist society, where precisely the opposite, income differentiation, is the major driver, at least theoretically. More effort, more lucre.