Meet Toby Ord. He's an Oxford academic who believes that people can and should donate much more money to charity over their lifetimes.  He is aiming to give away £1 million over his, despite earning £25,000 (soon to be increased), an amount many might consider to be paltry.

So, as someone who also loves philosophy, who appreciates off-the-wall thinking, and who believes that the Big Society can work, why - in thinking about Ord's campaign - do I find him to be the most insufferable tossbag?

Firstly, I cannot accept that it's right - whether economically, socially, or rationally - to encourage people to give so much of their own earned money away to charity before they've been able to put the prospect of their own poverty beyond reach.  It seems daft to me to give lots away only to have to turn to other people's charity at some later date.

Secondly, Ord's campaign rests in no small part to his university flat which, at a monthly rental of £416, is significantly below the market rent, even in a slum city like Oxford.  It's all very well to call others to arms, but it's unfair to do so using privileged access to assets from which others can't benefit.

Thirdly, and most seriously, I strongly object to the mixing of "savings and tax" in the BBC graphic.  Savings are totally different to tax.  They could hardly be more different.  Savings are amounts put aside from current earnings to fund your own future expenditure.  Tax represents amounts put aside from current earnings to fund society's current expenditure.  That's not to say that some taxes weren't at one time savings-like.  National insurance, for example, started life as a scheme to encourage people to provide for their own retirement benefits via a national scheme.  Over time, though, we can see that the scheme has been totally subverted by government meddling, such that now it's just another tax.  You have to pay national insurance, but it now really doesn't purchase you any direct benefits over and above what other people can get.

I would be happier if Ord were encouraging people to make generous bequests in their wills.  It's better to get people to save up their own money and then donate from that, rather than getting them to hand it over now when they might need it later.

And with tax representing the biggest bill for virtually every citizen as well as being an individual's donation to society, it would be better to treat tax payments as part of one's lifetime donation to charity.  If you did that, you'd see that lots of higher earners already donate £1 million or more to other people.  Why the ukuncut protestors and other left-wingers can't appreciate that, is a much better question to be asking.

People who read this post also read:

• Occupy London and the dead hand of the state
• Timeb*nkers
• The anatomy of corporation tax in the UK
• Stretching the definition of tax avoidance to breaking point
• The flip side of progressiveness

Filed under: Ethics, Other blogs, Taxation with tags big society, charity, national insurance, oxford university, philosophy, toby ord, ukuncut