I was, I admit, pleased to read the editorial of International Tax Review this month, written by an old friend, Salman Shaheen. As he said:
It's been more than three years since I last had the privilege of writing the editorial in this fine magazine. But after something of a hiatus editing a current affairs magazine, covering such cheery topics as international terror, climate change, North Korean nukes and Donald Trump, I have returned to the world of tax. And what a time it is to be back.
I agree. What he said next brought it closer to home for me:
As I write, I am sitting in a lecture theatre in City, University of London where the Tax Justice Network is holding its annual conference. Here, the mood is optimistic. Yes there are threats to everything these activists hold dear — Brexit, the aforementioned Trump, a global race to the bottom on corporate tax rates and social protections. But there is also a palpable sense that I'm sitting in a room full of people who know they're winning.
We do. As my old sparring partner Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute tells me every time we meet, tax justice is not just winning every battle, but we're also winning the war. Salman put it in context:
When I first started writing about tax seven years ago, ideas like country-by-country reporting and automatic information exchange were commonly considered by those in the international tax community as fringe concepts entertained only by radicals. Nothing to take seriously, nothing that would ever see the light of day.
Now these things are as mainstream as motherhood, apple pie and Ed Sheeran.
The result?:
[T]he public awakening to the importance of tax in the light of recession, austerity and squeezed living standards, spurred by leaks and media revelations, has stirred the international community into action and it responded with BEPS, making CbCR the norm.
And as a result:
Days before this issue went to press, the European Parliament voted to adopt public CbCR. Across the room from me, Richard Murphy, the accountant who invented the standard, looks like a man who's just achieved his life's ambition. But he's not going to stop there. He has just called for a revolution, overturning the fundamentals of the international political and economic system so it works fairly for all.
These are big words from a characteristically fiery campaigner. Can it be done? Almost every prevailing force of global finance that has operated since Reagan and Thatcher ushered in the last great revolution in economics is lined up against such ideas. But even the smallest of boats can tack into the wind. And if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that a small band of hardened activists, academics and economists can change the world.
I, unsurprisingly agree. As Salman said:
It's good to be back.
I hope there will be a lot to talk about, because if we are to have a fair and sustainable world where seven billion or more people are to have a chance of anything approaching a decent life then tax will be part of the necessary revolution - by which I mean radical restructuring of the balance of risks and rewards in society - that is required to end the mess we're in. Nothing less will do.
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I hope you are both right to be optimistic about winning the war.
But when is the war against economic stupidity going to be won? This morning on #Marr we had the Chancellor and his Shadow, both going along with the current mainstream (media) account of taxing to spend.
McDonnell did mention (en passant) that (some) tax would be returned from any rise in public sector pay, so I suppose that is a small, but important, movement in the discourse. I wish Marr had the nous to have pounced on that and had demanded to know how big an effect that would be. I wonder what McDonell would have said. Is there anything in the costing document behind the Labour Manifesto which takes any account of tax returned after spending?
I D it I have not been through the costings
But multipliers weren’t discussed as I recall it
“Is there anything in the costing document behind the Labour Manifesto which takes any account of tax returned after spending?”
If it were to be truthful, and of any real use, the manifesto would have to state that *every single penny* of spending would be returned to the Exchequer after tax, except that which the private sector chose, by its own decision, to save – because money does not stop at first use, and taxes are not needed to fund public spending.
Agreed
You must feel very proud of your contribution – and rightly so.
To me though, it seems that nothing is happening – we seem to be at a standstill in so many areas of economic life as this stubborn ineffective Tory Government clings on.
Have hope
I’m just a ORDINARY VOTER and voters I meet our on the doorstep or on Labour stalls really don’t grasp all this MMT which is hard to explain. Like government printing money out of thin air how does that work? I think what we need is a simple explanation on a postcard that we can hand out to people to make them realise the lies the Tories are telling. IMO Labour’s biggest sticking point is its still not trusted on the economy. I wish McDonell would be more daring in his exposing this myth.How can we get him to? How can we get Labour activists trained in a better understanding of the economy. Is there a Guide for dummies?
Still working on this
A quick summary of the creation of money on a postcard which could be handed out to doubters could be a winner. A few of them handed to the right (wrong?) people could easily turn into a viral video – a nice way of using old fashioned print media to start up the twittersphere….
Agree Anya we really need some help on this. The only Labour politician I’ve heard fighting back hard against the MSM/Tory line is Chuka. We need to get JM and his team repudiating the myth and putting forward some cear and understandable policies. Need help vv soon Richard.
You didn’t hear Jeremy Corbyn on pretty much every single day of the election campaign pushing back against the MSM/Tory line?
and
I would love to be linked in to the places where Umunna is repudiating the MSM line – can you post here?
I think the reference is to Brexit
“How can we get Labour activists trained in a better understanding of the economy.”
Do what I’ve done and get in contact with those in the know about MMT and see if you can arrange for them to come to your LP CLP/branch and give a talk.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/modern-monetary-theory-uk or contact @NeilWilson on Twitter.
On the whole I prefer evolution to revolution.
I think rapid evolution is revolution and we sure as heck can’t go slowly
If we do we’ll have bloody revolution and I really would rather not have that
Interesting discussion evolution vs. revolution.
The sort of revolution we need to avoid is the one that is led by chaos.
What we need I think in order realise Richard’s model of the ‘courageous state’ is a revolution in knowledge about how this can be realised.
The changes required in order to ‘undo’ the corrupt Neo-liberal monetarist/banking agenda and to restore a minimum of economic integrity and democratic control are radical and systemic – hence logically I cannot see how they can be ‘evolutionary’. As your headline correctly states: “Nothing less than a revolution will do.” Furthermore, if left to its own devious devices, I suspect there is still a lot of financial ‘mileage’ left in the status quo.
Coincidentlly I’ve just watched this above-averagely-good ‘Keiser Report’ (June 24th) which is relevant to your posts: Financialized Economy – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfeAhYUWSas. In the first segment they discuss James Howard Kunstler’s prediction that ‘the financialized economy is entering its moment of final catastrophic phase-change.’ Max K disagrees, estimating there’s still $15 trillion in the ‘system’ and a countless number of computer key-stroke ‘zeros’. In the second segment he ‘interviews lawyer and filmmaker John Titus, about the not-so-secret and yet little-discussed Financial Stability Board authority over sovereign powers to regulate banks. Titus highlights the case of HSBC and the threat made by George Osborne to the Obama administration’s Department of Justice.’
It’s clear the entire financial establishment is rotten to the core, with London at the epi-centre. No amount of evolutionary strategies, however ‘intelligent’, are going to change it. Historically wars have been catalysts for seismic change. Maybe now, as Max Keiser suggests, it will take an environmental catastrophe. Whatever it is that triggers the 38 degree tipping-point, inevitably there will be some level of violence, somewhere in Western society. Of course, like you, I wish it could be otherwise. But there is a sort of 1930s head-in-the-sand feel to it all, with the general public intentionally distracted by the usual media diet of bread & circuses. Anyone for tennis?
John D, I agree. Evolution isn’t possible when the current consensus opinion on economics is, in almost every way, actually the opposite of reality and the opposite of what is required for prosperity and sustainability for all.
I believe the only evolutionary bit is the gradual spread of better economic ideas thanks to people like Richard Murphy. As those ideas out compete the mainstream BS we’ll eventually reach a tipping point and the intellectual revolution will occur.
Suddenly everyone in the mainstream will be telling us that MMT, tax justice and a Green New Deal is what they’d been advocating all along.
To misquote Ghandi:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win…
…then those who are able to rewrite history to put themselves on the right side of it and you have to watch them like a hawk forever to guard against their inevitable counter-revolution.”
How about the following; Set up a new ‘think tank’ / campaign to promote the views expressed by most parties to this blog and to track and combat the economic illiteracy promoted by politicians of all hues, the bbc and the likes of the ifs and resolution foundation.
I see the 2nd track as having primary focus initially. This would use multiple channels being co-ordinated social media campaigns and press releases in response to specific examples of nonsense.
Nice idea
Got a lot of money?
Richard
Some time and motivation
Thank you so much for your helpful article. It is a very effective article. I believe that it will help me to solve everything correctly in future.
[…] agree on the Conservatives. I would urge Labour to be more radical, simply because it needs to be. My own call for a revolution was the subject of a blog this weekend. I made it because nothing less will do. But what we need is a programme to tackle this issue. That […]
[…] noted concerns on growing wealth inequality this morning, here and here. Over the weekend I also published references to the call I made for a peaceful revolution in the way risks and rewards are shared in our society […]