Truncated the title as it doesn’t give me much hope yet. Until we actually tax the rich, I won’t be happy.
Early indicators are that this Labour administration won’t do it either.
The article effectively says:
- The ultra rich run the media, and pretend that taxing the rich is a bad thing.
- Basically everyone wants to tax the rich apart from the rich.
- MPs and governments are cowards, for the most part.
That’s my read on it anyway.
They suggest that the barrier to taxing extreme wealth is a deeply entrenched pattern of political fear, economic uncertainty, institutional capture and parliamentary self-preservation.
In one word — corruption.
Corruption? How dare you sir/madam! Corruption is what those dirty little countries have! Here in the UK we have evolved beyond corruption because we’re rich, civilised and um… white… or something.
No this is just doing business. Nothing to see here. Get back to work.
Yes, but also not just corruption.
The rich can throw their economic weight around in a number of ways.
For example, an employer of 10-50-100k people could say that if certain laws get passed, they’ll simply… stop operating in the country, because losing said operations isn’t as much a loss than what those new laws introduce.
And politicians do have to consider the livelihood of those people. It’s not like a new company will pop up and buy all the equipment, hire those people, and provide economic stability for 10-100 thousand families. The company leaving doesn’t just mean a drop in tax revenue, but also now up to 500k people are destitute and require government support to survive.
Gasp. Is this… actual journalism? This feels like stumbling on a Unicorn in the wild.
Humans, continuously asking questions they won’t ever answer so they can continue having the same news cycle tear after year.
