Does the world have it's political priorities wrong?
Maybe it's all about the taxes. Trickle-down economics has failed, even on its own terms. Billionaires meet at Davos to discuss 'creative solutions' which amount to nothing. Philanthropy can't fill the hole that low taxes dig and a rising tide leaves most people underwater.
In my view, Davos has one thing and one thing alone correct: the need for international collaboration. The rich collaborate and share their ideas at these summits and capital is international. To compensate for this, governments also need heavy international collaboration which includes collaboration on tax. Unless the effort to close tax havens is international, then money will just move elsewhere. French economist Thomas Piketty has previously suggested an international wealth tax (on assets, not income) and I think that makes a lot of sense.
This is why nationalism (of the right-wing populist variety) can never ever provide for its citizens as it claims. While it asks some of the necessary questions about 'globalist' free-market capitalism, it can never make good on its rhetoric of defending the ordinary people against the interests of wealth and power. It couldn't even do that if its figureheads did actually have that as a genuine objective, which they don't. Instead of prioritising our own countries (including the elites of your country) against others, we should be concentrating on building international solidarity.
Building a wall to keep people out won't stop capital from jumping the border. The Brexit version of taking back control means Ayn Rand island and 19th-century levels of regulations and protections. For me, the answers are simple but they are obscured by so much noise.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ijiLqfXP0]
In my view, Davos has one thing and one thing alone correct: the need for international collaboration. The rich collaborate and share their ideas at these summits and capital is international. To compensate for this, governments also need heavy international collaboration which includes collaboration on tax. Unless the effort to close tax havens is international, then money will just move elsewhere. French economist Thomas Piketty has previously suggested an international wealth tax (on assets, not income) and I think that makes a lot of sense.
This is why nationalism (of the right-wing populist variety) can never ever provide for its citizens as it claims. While it asks some of the necessary questions about 'globalist' free-market capitalism, it can never make good on its rhetoric of defending the ordinary people against the interests of wealth and power. It couldn't even do that if its figureheads did actually have that as a genuine objective, which they don't. Instead of prioritising our own countries (including the elites of your country) against others, we should be concentrating on building international solidarity.
Building a wall to keep people out won't stop capital from jumping the border. The Brexit version of taking back control means Ayn Rand island and 19th-century levels of regulations and protections. For me, the answers are simple but they are obscured by so much noise.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ijiLqfXP0]
41-45, M
