We Need More Tax Justice

We need more tax justice. This assertion would have seemed faulty, inaccurate, perhaps outrageous thirty years ago. It no longer is. The abundance of techniques to launder money across borders and the existence of tax havens throughout the world has enabled that much of the profits from world trade end up in offshore centers. As much as sixty percent of world trade occurs between subsidiaries of a same multinational corporation. Much of this remains away from the radar of the tax authority.

This is the world the baby boomers have built. This is a world that has enabled North America and Europe to continue building up their welfare states, a world that has undermined the ability of developing nations to build up their healthcare and education infrastructure, and last but not least, a world that is making it increasingly difficult to maintain the welfare standards in the Western world.

What does more tax justice mean? It means appropriately taxing corporate profits, it means taxing appropriately the income and dividends, the intellectual rights of pharmaceutical companies, and the profits of hedge funds and private equity funds. Why do we need more tax justice? In order to start the new era of global public goods. Global public goods were a history of science fiction fifty years ago. They no longer are. It is possible today to build on the experience accumulated from sixty years of international institutions and cooperation to devise new horizons that propose innovative, creative policymaking.

In 1992 Francis Fukuyama wrote The End of History. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War left democracy and capitalism as the de facto approach the West would aim at spreading. The faulty foreign policy of George W. Bush and the ongoing economic and financial crisis have turned the environment around. The Washington consensus is over, what remains? "It remains for us now, if we do not wish to perish, to set aside the ancient prejudices and build the Earth". These words, by Pierre Theilhard de Chardin, summarize the window of opportunity we face as a global society. It is our generation's duty to lead a change, to think of a better world and future and step forward to implement it. We must dare.

There was no end of history. There will not be an end of history. Society will always continue to mature. Are there catalysts that could accelerate the stage of evolution of global understanding? How long will it take to implement global public goods? We demand more tax justice, when will our political and economic elites react to the reality of an unfair economic and financial architecture dominated by the loopholes the lawyers and private bankers know real well?

It is time to acknowledge the reality of our unequal world. It is time to say why not instead of why. It is time, finally, to fight the pirates of heartless capitalism and eradicate extreme poverty.

Find more about Jaime Pozuelo-Monfort at http://Monfort.ORG

Comments

[Donkslayer]

Sorry, but before my money goes to "global public goods", I want a "global public government" that I can vote for first.

[vagabondvet]

There's that darn Constitution in the way of a global public government.

[Aaror]

I'm sorry, your comments were all over the map, but I will comment on your original point.
Yes, we should tax profits earned by playing with slips of paper at least at the same rate as we tax people who work hard in a coal mine or on an assembly line (sorry Republicans, trickle down is a santa clause idea). Yes, we should close down offshore loopholes. Yes, we should go after people who evade taxes.
If everyone just paid their fair share of taxes the way middle class americans do, the national deficit would be much smaller this year, and go away next year. We could start paying down our national debt!

[Henry]

"Global public goods were a history of science fiction fifty years ago."

When you talk of public goods are you referring to social goods like socialized medicine? I mean the battle between public and/or private provision of goods is to be settled in the democratic process and really has little to do with tax justice. The architecture of the remuneration for pro athletes and movie stars does not really seem to bother anyone. The problem with public goods is the problem with the old soviet union. Sometimes a social provision of a good or service is more efficient than a private allocation. But arguing for public goods as a result of tax justice seems a mega disjoint.