Living in a sandwich

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Campaigning for tax justice is a curious experience. Those on the Right claim I am anti-business, anti-wealth or just plain envious (as was the main line of those who opposed me on Hecklers last year). None of these are true, as my CV helps demonstrate. I have lost count of the number of times I have been called a Marxist on AccountingWEB by those who do not understand something of what Marxism might be.

But then just to balance the equation, this morning brings criticism from the Socialist Standard who, in an article called 'Profit
laundering: what's justice got to do with it?' say:

Tax Havens Cause Poverty" proclaims the home page of the Tax Justice Network.

to which they reply:

No, they don't. The profit system does.

After which they then make some further claims with which I have some difficulty, or which I consider plain straightforwardly wrong from which they conclude:

The real utopians are not us, but those like the Tax Justice Network who still think that you can doing something constructive within the capitalist framework of class ownership and production for profit. You can't. .

I really do think they're wrong. But I'll give them full marks for one thing. They have spotted that I am content with a market system as long as it is as close to a level playing field as possible and is properly regulated to achieve that result.

Curiously that seems to put me in the middle, miles apart from two extremes, neither of which I find acceptable. I can happily live in that middle ground. It's where most people are.


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