Most academics in the world are listed on Google Scholar. I admit I have only just got round to getting myself listed. I was slightly surprised to find I have been cited 1,307 times and am the 25th most cited person on tax. It was good to see tax justice colleagues Prem Sikka and Alex Cobham beating me on that list.
But the real reason for posting this is to note that this is a relatively easy way to find quite a lot of what I have written.
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Well done research – that is awesome indeed. Apart from citations, you have made a big impact on real world policy, transforming society in the process.
Thanks
Good to be with you in the FT this morning
I wish there was a Google Skiver listing, I might rank high in that one.
Yes – in an echo of Atul above. I am currently reading ‘the joy of tax’. I think a mark of real intelligence and understanding is that it is able to simplify apparently complicated things, making them more transparent. Your book/writing belongs in this category and for what this contributes to a fairer world, “thank you”.
Thanks
Dear Richard,
I thought you might be interested to know of a new textbook on money and finance, which is aimed at secondary school – and being promoted by none other than Martin Lewis, the tv personality and founder of moneysavingexpert.com.
Here is the press release: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/11/financial-education-textbooks-funded-by-martin-land-in-english-s/
why do i bring this up? Because its being rolled out to schools around the country. It has 6 parts. One of those parts is called ‘Moving on from school – the world of work’.
In it, he effectively normalises Student debt – entrenching it into a textbook form, making it simply a part of life.
Another chapter is called ‘”why do we pay income tax”. Where it says:
“What is the history of Income Tax and why do we pay it?
Income Tax was introduced by William Pitt the Younger more than 200
years ago when he needed the money to pay for the wars against
Napoleon, the leader of France. For many years, Income Tax was only
paid by the very rich, but in the 20th century it began to rise and, by 1930,
10 million people were paying Income Tax. The rates rose again to pay for
the Second World War and, in 1944, the system of Pay As You Earn (PAYE)
was introduced.
Today, Income Tax is the biggest individual source of income for the
government and accounts for nearly 25% of government income. This,
together with the income the government raises from other sources, is
used to pay for all the various areas of government spending.
Examples of government spending include:
– Provision of State Pensions,
low income support and
Jobseeker’s Allowance
– The National Health Service
(NHS) — building hospitals,
providing treatment and paying
doctors and nurses
– Spending on schools, colleges
and universities
– The Armed Forces — keeping
the Army, Navy and Royal Air
Force up to date with the latest
technology, and paying the
salaries of our military personnel
– Local councils — providing
services such as emptying your
rubbish bins, cleaning the
streets, etc.
All of these services, and many more, are paid for by the government and
to do so they must use the income that they receive from taxation. Not just
Income Tax but also National Insurance, Value Added Tax (VAT), Council Tax,
taxes on business profits, vehicle tax, and taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, etc.”
The indoctrination continues. Or – Richard – have we just got this entirely wrong? Somehow, somewhere along the line…….is the HM Treasury litereally taking in payments it receives and redistributing that out to pay for services? Has MMT analysis just got this completely upside down somehow?
Or is this idea of taxes funding spending so entrenched that it is now not even remotely questioned? Obviously I think its the latter, but the extent to which this is the case is so enormous now, that anyone espousing MMT such as yourself are now starting to look like crackpots.
Its getting serious.
Good stuff about google scholar. And I should bloody well think so too.
Moraj
Thanks for the heads up. For some time people like von Hayek and Friedman were seen as crackpots but their day in the sun came.
It maybe that the same will happen with MMT – some sort of world disorder will bring it to pass as long as its proponents can gel together and agree more broadly about its application (are you listening Bill?). I suspect that the environment or natural resource depletion will have something to do with it.
Neo-liberalism persists because it is a faith based system – not an evidenced based one – just like the money markets that it rides on the coat tails of etc.
Well done, Richard! What a wonderful collection of works.