Theft and bribery
Sir: The announced rate increase for GLC ratepayers demonstrates the underlying irrationality of Western political systems. The fact is that the political set-up has degenerated, as a result of universal suffrage and `one man, one vote', into little more than a device for theft on the one hand, and bribery on the other. After all, this increased rate is being levied simply to provide services and subsidies for a vast and increasing dependent rabble, to induce the recipients to vote and maintain in authority a class of demagogues; and all this at the expense, not of the demagogues themselves, but of those whose industry and foresight have produced the wealth which is to be stolen.
What sane administrator would introduce an arrangement whereby the beneficiaries of a charity or subsidy have control of its distribution? Yet that is what has happened in public affairs. Demagogues gain power by promising the mass of have-nots that they will steal from those who have, in order to bribe those who have not, to vote for and maintain them in power. It is straight forward purchase of power by bribery, and no longer a matter of charity or concern for welfare.
There is no distinction in this between the political parties. For instance, once council houses exist they are in fact the property of the ratepayers. Yet the Conservative Party sees fit to entitle the tenants to buy their houses, whether or not the owners see fit to sell; and moreover to empower the tenants to buy them at less than the true market value. Is this not simple theft of the ratepayers' assets, done to bribe the new owner-occupiers to vote Conservative next time?
C. Carter
22 Culverden Road, London SW12
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