We should consider the Robin Hood Tax as an option. I think it would be relatively easy to gain support from the wider community. The idea has been around for years.
The Robin Hood Tax (more formally known as a financial transaction tax) is a tiny tax on financial speculation by investment banks, hedge funds and other finance institutions that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, in Australia and overseas.
It can start as low as 0.005 per cent – and average 0.05 per cent. But when levied on the billions of dollars moving round the global finance system daily through transactions such as foreign exchange, derivatives and share deals, it could raise hundreds of billions of dollars annually.
That can provide for vital investment in much needed and underfunded public services like health and education, resource efforts to conserve our environment, aid the fight against global poverty and climate change. This money can help shape the future of our world.
It appears that some of the Occupy groups have already endorsed the proposed tax, we should push it.
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/robinhood.html
- Steve
Occupy Melbourne Economic Discussion Group
gamedesign11
Mechanical Chimp
lasse99
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theprisonerno6
We certainly should discuss the Robin Hook Tax as an option so thanks Steve for kicking off the discussion.
I think we should reject that option as a fairly transparent attempt to co-opt the movement. As can be seen from the wikipedia link above, it is basically an NGO led proposal for a financial transactions tax that has been promoted for years and looks like it might be headed towards actual adoption in the EU.
The policy vacuum in the Occupy Movement has naturally led various liberal think-tanks to offer advice on policies that could help turn it into a Democrat answer to the Republican “Tea Party”.
For example this item from the Roosevelt Institute’s Mike Konczal on September 28 proposes:
1. Cancel the debts.
2. Investigate Wall Street
3. Create a Financial Transaction Tax
http://www.good.is/post/three-concrete-demands-to-hold-wall-street-accountable/
The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein has called for liberal intellectuals to take up policy leadership of the movement, with sound advice both that policies are necessary and that debt cancellation will have more impact than a financial transaction tax.
Ad-busters has jumped in rather opportunistically, pretending the proposal is for a “1%” financial tax in order to resonate with the Occupy Movement’s talk about “the 1%”.
In fact of course the serious proposals are for more like 0.01% as anything like 1% would just clog up financial transactions rather than actually raising revenue.
Since Ad-busters is pushing it, no doubt it will be taken up in many places, along with pretty well any other proposal that “sounds good”.
It might even be useful in raising some revenue. But any such tax will certainly be passed on to consumers and will have no redistributive effect whatever.
While advocating SOME policy relating to Wall Street and the economic crisis might be a step forward compared with the present incoherence, I think this would mainly reinforce the trend to co-option by the Democrats as a substitute for developing our own ideas.
The proposal for “A WEALTH TAX ON THE 1%” has several major advantages:
1. Like the Financial Transactions Tax it is a realistic proposal that is already partially implemented in some countries and could be extended in those countries and adopted in others. But there is no “natural” stopping point at which anyone could say “our demand has been met”, so its a LOT harder to co-opt us. Partial successes will make us feel stronger, without simultaneously undermining us.
2. It keeps the focus on “the 1%” and enables us to explain to the 99% that we are proposing a tax that will have ZERO effect on them. Whereas most other forms of tax end up being passed on to the poor and evaded by the rich.
3. The main obstacle to having more than the token 1-2% wealth taxes currently implemented is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_flight
An international movement for a wealth tax everywhere is the answer to that, and goes well together with other necessary measures for rigorous enforcement with confiscation of concealed or undervalued assets.
4. Details should be left open (as with any other proposal) but its worth mentioning that it should be steeply progressive starting at 0% but reaching a 100% cap on the wealth of the top 0.1%. This is harder to express in a slogan and harder for people to understand, but explaining it means explaining what the distribution of wealth REALLY looks like.
I’ll leave it there for now, hoping for further discussion.
–a transaction tax on income and spending–
A robin hood tax would simply become the raising of GST to 11% from 10% and we can all accept this would have a greater detrimental effect on the extremely poor rather than the extremely wealthy.
The wealthy would simply seek to avoid the tax and then use their political connections to draw upon this new governmental revenue stream.
The poor would become more poor and the rich would become richer. I think this is something we would clearly reject as simply unfair and unjust.
–a tax on wealth and savings–
capital flight to tax havens would be the result, of course this option would only be available to the ultra wealthy. all other people would be taxed on their modest savings.
Of course the very wealthy would still have political access to this new revenue stream and live in tax sanctuaries were they have insulated them selves from the poor and also insulated the poor from their wealth.
same result via a slightly different mechanism.
–final thoughts–
the simple way forward would be to focus on the monetary system and how it is used against the majority of people.
A simple end game would be to simple: for all people to universally stop accepting any fiat currency for a product or service.
If we propose to mover forward in an economic system where capital exchange occurs as a driver of economic activity we must have a medium of exchange that is not arbitrarily debased (inflation) by a central bank or other party.
It might have been a good idea 20 years ago, Steve, but all too late now. This system’s goin’ down! The iceberg has been struck and the rumours of this ship being unsinkable have been greatly exaggerated.
And yes, Arthur, the debts need to be canceled, but that ain’t going to happen either. Have a look at the pressure the Euro leaders put on the private banks to take a 50% haircut on their Greek debt. They finally got them to agree in principle but it’s still way off being bedded down. Watch this space…