{"id":14751,"date":"2012-03-22T19:10:20","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T19:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=14751"},"modified":"2012-03-22T19:10:20","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T19:10:20","slug":"the-moral-maze-tax-avoidance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/03\/22\/the-moral-maze-tax-avoidance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Moral Maze – tax avoidance"},"content":{"rendered":"

I've just\u00a0listened\u00a0to\u00a0yesterday's\u00a0Moral Maze <\/a>on BBC Radio 4 - on which I was a witness - again. Since it is broadcast live it's hard to get an objective view of what is happening when shuffling in and out of studies, and so on.<\/p>\n

Three things cam out to me. The first is the audacity and\u00a0depravity\u00a0of the Hayekian view that decries democracy in the name of greed - and would overthrow\u00a0democracy\u00a0at the first possible\u00a0opportunity. This\u00a0depravity\u00a0is also far more common in the\u00a0Conservative\u00a0party \u00a0now than many realise. Opposing it is, of course, a key part of the tax justice campaign Just as we're one of the strongest pro-business lobbies there is so too are we profoundly pro-democracy and defend it against the battering it gets from offshore and the lawyers bankers,\u00a0accountants\u00a0and others who work there with the aim of\u00a0undermining\u00a0the\u00a0democratic\u00a0will of elected parliaments.<\/p>\n

Second, the pedantry of the right is so apparent,\u00a0both\u00a0in those interviewed and in those on the panel, and the sheer nastiness of their\u00a0approach\u00a0is cleart. I am, of course,\u00a0familiar\u00a0with this. I have suffered it on this blog for a long time and I frequently meet people like those interviewed and I\u00a0never\u00a0cease to be struck by the fundamentally anti-social nature of their behaviour, attitude and comments which\u00a0treats\u00a0all but\u00a0those\u00a0who they think share their\u00a0intellectual\u00a0and\u00a0financial\u00a0good fortune as little better than serfs. That was all too apparent last evening!<\/p>\n

Third, is how\u00a0inconsistent\u00a0the arguments of those opposing tax justice are. They have little\u00a0argument\u00a0- as was made clear of the first\u00a0commentator\u00a0under questioning - he simply offered\u00a0rhetoric. Or they deliver ad hominems - as Melanie Phillips clearly wanted to do of me as an accountant and failed somewhat when I agreed my profession was unethical which I really do not think she expected. And they will also\u00a0perpetually\u00a0play devil's\u00a0advocate\u00a0precisely\u00a0because\u00a0they have no moral viewpoint to project and therefore can adopt any position that suits their immediate and\u00a0transient\u00a0purpose\u00a0for\u00a0abuse.<\/p>\n

I enjoy exposing the threat these people pose to our society and the desire they have for a\u00a0totalitarian\u00a0takeover of our state, for that is their goal. It is hard to believe the current\u00a0government\u00a0does not share it on\u00a0occasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve just\u00a0listened\u00a0to\u00a0yesterday’s\u00a0Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4 – on which I was a witness – again. Since it is broadcast live it’s hard to get
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}