The Observer will accurately reflect the concerns of many this morning. Post Brexit and Trump, the risk of far-right governments in France and the Netherlands is very real. Italy looks precarious. Poland and Hungary already look like one party far-right states. Turkey is. The threat from globalisation is looking to sweep the foundations of liberal democracy away.
A decade ago when John Christensen and I were pretty rare tax justice campaigners I remember us appraising the challenges to the changes we wanted to promote. We agreed fascism was the most likely to eventually stand in our way. I think it still is.
There is no room for tax justice in a far-right state because there is no appropriate concept of justice in far-right thinking on which to base it. There is only preference, discrimination, favour and subjugation. The nuance of ensuring that the right amount of tax is paid at the right rate, in the right place and at the right time by the right person will begin to look pretty irrelevant if there is isolationism in play from a government that will more openly favour some groups in society than those now alive have ever been used to.
Tax justice is dependent upon a concept of social justice that promotes equality for all before the law having widespread support. For the last few years that has very obviously existed. But will that ideal survive amongst sufficient people to secure political backing for tax justice for much longer? I do not know. I will keep working for it, even if the hope becomes forlorn, but the threat John and I always recognised has to be appreciated to be real now.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
“There is only preference, discrimination, favour and subjugation.” This is what we have had in the UK for at least for the last thirty five years in the UK – granted the subjugation has not been so naked until now!
It is not simply the case of the left right paradigmn is it Richard?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum
The current clash is between authoritarian and libertarian.
There is a growing trend to throw off authoritarianism when it has been responsible for so many BAD decisions:-
Neo-liberalism – (the new liberalism neing authoritarianism!)
Political Correctness – authoritarianism brought in under cover of respect for diversity, but really a system to control and limit the language of the citizens.
The irony is that instead of diversity being celebrated it is crushed,,,
The EU – authoritarian, run by so called technocrats, who really donot have a clue what they are doing!
United Nations – Agenda 21 and 2030 – authoritarian – this will lead to a destruction of the first world’s industrial base and worldwide poverty, famine and death on a scale that has not been seen to date if it is not stopped in tracks. the utterly cruel satanic hoax of anthropogenic climate change fixated on CO2 emissions. If the concerns about the environment were genuine -why isn’t emergency action taken on China’s pollution, nuclear power station leaks, the dumping of waste in the seas and oceans, fracking that ruins one of the most precious resources of all – water
This is driving the cruelest
…agenda!
Nick
I think that you are wrong. You are being led by the nose in my view. It’s a wild goose chase.
The dominant dynamic that I can see now is not between ‘authoritarianism’ or ‘liberalism’ at all.
These two ‘states of mind’ are natural bedfellows – especially when it comes to governing a state. It is a dialectic that actually results in a well ran state that benefits all if both approaches are balanced. What I’m saying is that this dialectic is not new at all. It’s always been there. Of real concern however is where and why a government is authoritarian or liberal. In terms of Trump and Co this is going to be interesting to watch.
The real threat that I see in this country and in the USA is the neo-liberal appropriation of progressive language and goals to be used as a Trojan horse from which even more regressive policies will result. Whether you call it populism or empathy – it will still be false and for effect only.
That – tied to the Tory/neo-lib propensity to play the blame game and divide and conquer means that I think that Richard is right to raise the issue that tax justice is under threat. Progressive language will be used as a smokescreen to be regressive and further entrench vested interests . This is the basis of ‘post truth’ politics.
The appropriation of progressive language shows us just how far the Right are prepared to go to obtain power.
And post truth politics is what you get when the Left is too tongue tied to even acknowledge that a phenomenon like globalisation is actually hurting people and not all that it claims to be. In fact you could say that it has been politically correct not to question the current mode of globalisation at all and the Left has been part of the conspiracy of silence and denial about this.
And this is what you get.
The Left/progressives everywhere are potentially in a world of shit right now until they sort this out. Because the Left are very quiet at the moment and it is the Right (using progressive language) who can be heard loudest. And that is not good in my view.
In your view, is the far-right a threat to tax simplification, or more likely to support simplification.
I work in local government council tax collection and we spend resources investigating people for claiming single person discounts and other discounts to which they are not entitled. This includes home visits, checking social media ( it’s surprising what a photograph will reveal ) and even considering liaising with ‘phone companies to see how many mobiles in use are at an address overnight.
It would be simpler to abolish most discounts, end the spying on people, and those on low incomes could come into a slightly expanded council tax benefit scheme ( for which a compliance system already exists ).
I don’t see many moves towards tax simplification from the existing range of parties that have recently been in power. When was the last time the size of the tax code was reduced, if ever? A fresh look is overdue imv.
I have no problem with some simplifications
But why should single people pay more than families? Council tax is already deeply regressive
They wouldn’t pay more than a family so it would not be regressive. You’re assuming that two adults always have more income than one. Often they don’t, yet they have to pay more council tax despite having the same income between them as a single person. If they were on a low income they could negate the regressive effects by claiming Council Tax Benefit/Support/Reduction depending on the name the local authority gives it.
I really wanted a view on whether far right nationalist parties who want an expanded government give us a better shot at simplification than those currently or recently in power.
Far right parties want an expanded government?
I have not seen that
So corporations will pay less in taxes, and even less in a year or two; and, eventually, nothing.
The unacknowledged factor is the lack of an agenda from the major economic players who are still creating value rather than rent-seeking: the Apple, Intel and General Motors corporate entities want to pay less tax, or none, but they have no vision of the society they want – not even the corporate state of the Chaebol or the Zaibatsu in 1970’s Korea and Japan – and the limit of their vision is the locusts’ urge to consume all they can and move on.
Some entities – the Walmarts and the Sercos of our world – have a vision of ‘society’ as the breeding pool for a ragged army of casual workers, desperate for food and a day’s labour, overseen by a tiny middle class of heavily indebted managers and technicians; but this is not a self-sustaining and stable economy. This, too, is locust capitalism.
Others see themselves collecting their rents and living behind walls, or the mountain passes of Switzerland, with a retinue of servants: that isn’t capitalism, it’s neofeudalism. Their agenda is all too obvious, and futile: they need a productive host society, too.
So we see history reinventing itself, in which support for low taxes and ‘business friendly’ governments moves on from paying lawyers and accountants, to paying lobbyists and shills and useful idiots, to purchasing the media resources to instal a ‘neoliberal consensus’; and, finally, to acquiescence in government by ‘strongman’ figures who deliver exactly what their sponsors asked for…
…And like the djinns or demons in the darker folk tales of our ancestors, the demagogue’s gift of ‘exactly what you asked for’ turns out to be worse than worthless: everything that the protagonists hope to gain is devalued or destroyed.
In short: what I see is a gadarene rush to abandon the social compact and let the host societies wither; and those who lead the rush have no reason and nothing to gain.
But they will all pay less in taxes, and eventually nothing.
The battle is, as it always has been, between those with power and money and those without. Throughout the twentieth century until 1980, or thereabouts the Left had managed to wrest some of the power held by the capitalists. The capitalists fought back aided and abetted by the political forces they had co-opted to their cause ( principally Reagan and Thatcher ) . And now here we are – the Left has been dismantled piece by piece by laws, financial capitalism and globalisation in all its many manifestations. So into that void comes a motley crew on a revanchist lite platform – Farage, Trump, Le Pen et al – all with one message in common; the status quo sucks so vote for us and we will change it. It may all turn out to be a big fat lie, but the inability of the Left to create a sufficiently compelling alternative ( Saunders notwithstanding, Corbyn barely trying ) has provided the opportunity for the have-nots to say ‘ enough ‘ . Why is anybody who has been observing , even cursorily , the events of the last eight years surprised by this ? As societies for those of us living in the West and those of us old enough to look back sixty years or so there is a new class war and it may get very ugly indeed in the next year, or two .