Valentin Petkantchin wrote an article in this morning's FT attacking the EU's policy on tax havens.
I'll be unsubtle about the article. It's confused, illogical, appears to promote tax evasion and has at its core a perception of government and markets that appears markedly at odds with society as we know it. I was astounded that it got into the pages of the FT. So, I researched the author.
He works for Institut ?©conomique Molinari in Brussels. To quote its US sister Institute, that organisation exists to 'promote understanding of the philosophy of Market Anarchism as a sane, consensual alternative to the hypertrophic violence of the State'. These are the ideas of 19th-century economist and social theorist Gustave de Molinari, after whom the organisation is named.
For the avoidance of doubt, I checked what market anarchism is. It's defined as 'the doctrine that the legislative, adjudicative, and protective functions unjustly and inefficiently monopolised by the coercive State should be entirely turned over to the voluntary, consensual forces of market society'.
This is so contrary to all perceptions of civilised society that I think it fair to say that this comes from the right-wing fringes beyond Neo-Conservatism. I could argue with it, but this whole blog presents that argument, so I won't.
But what really worries me is this: how do such people who are a clearly a threat to our well-being get space in the FT?
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Anarchism per se is not right wing. It can be very attractive when connected to a certain view of man and woman’s place in the world, cooperative ideals, etc. I have thought through this quite a bit, lived it in a way, but not studied it.
What would inevitably arise in the ideal anarchic community is some form of social decision-making, what do you do with lazy-bones who does not lift a finger to help with the harvest/mend the gutters/etc.? Or what do you do with apparently pathological behaviour like attacking your wife with a knife? I have personally been there, so I know.
What happens is that the group meets and decides.
Up the scale a bit and you have mutual help and trade, regulated by cross-group agreements.
Up you go a bit more and you end up with a democracy, but a very different one from ours – smaller-scale with the subsidiarity principle actually in force. No tax-dodgers, then, I am not sure it could apply.
I think the challenge from anarchistic ideas is the only true challenge to Tax justice ideals, and has to be rebutted seriously, sorry!! This view is put forward by serious people, without knowing that it has a fancy name and an Institute to promote it.
The main argument against it is in my view, that we are not there, but here – in a world with Iraq, the NHS and its problems, BAe, and so on
And also I suspect that you suspect that the anarchistic ideal is being used as a cover for extreme right wing, “let them rot” ideas
But I am afraid it all needs to be spelt out, even in the FT
[…] Richard Murphy – took some persuading to get into this medium but is unquestionably on a roll. He’s making a far better job of bringing the tax governance issue into the light than I ever could. […]