CAPITALIST
ECONOMY vs SOCIALISM
Tax Haven
By Daniel Paquet
dpaquet1871@gmail.com
What is capitalism? Is it stagnant? Why is it criticized, by so many people, including
bourgeois media, especially working voices for torments brought upon them?
Nowadays, multinationals, giant firms
reckon on tax havens not to pay their fair share of their profits and revenues
in general, but they don’t.
But how is capitalism developing? We can have a look to Russia that was for
some decades capitalist, then socialist and return to the capitalist craddle. Lenin said:
“We still have, in conclusion, to sum up on
the question which in literature has come to be known as that of the “mission”
of capitalism, i.e. of its historical role in the economic development of Russia. Recognition of the progressiveness of this
role is quite compatible… with the full recognition of the negative and dark
sides of capitalism, with the full recognition of the profound and all-round
social contradictions which are inevitably inherent in capitalism, and which reveal
the historically transient character of this economic regime.
It is the Narodniks – who exert every
effort to show that an admission of the historically progressive nature of
capitalism means an apology for capitalism – who are at fault in underrating (and sometimes in even
ignoring) the most profound
contradictions of Russian capitalism, by
glossing over the differentiation of the peasantry, the capitalist
character of the evolution of our agriculture, and the rise of a class of rural
and industrial allotment-holding wage-labourers, by glossing over the complete
predominance of the lowest and worst
forms of capitalism in the celebrated ‘handicraft’ industries.
The progressive historical role of
capitalism may be summed up in two brief propositions: increase in the productive forces of social
labour, and the socialization of that labour.(…)
The socialization of labour by capitalism
is manifested in the following processes.
The very growth of commodity –production destroys the scattered condition
of small economic units that is characteristic of natural economy and draws
together the small local markets into an enormous national (and then world)
market […] The changes effected in the old
economic system by capitalism inevitably lead also to change in the mentality
of the population. The spasmodic
character of economic development, the rapid transformation of the methods of
production and the enormous concentration of production, the disappearance of
all forms of personal dependence and patriarchalism in relationships, the
mobility of the population, the influence of the big industrial centres, etc. –
all this cannot but lead to a profound
change in the very character of the producers, and we have had occasion to note the corresponding
observations of Russian investigators.”
(Lenin, the Development of capitalism in Russia/Collected Works, tome 3,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1897, pages 596-600).
Basically, about people’s mentality, under
capitalism or any other kind of society, Karl Marx wrote:
What else does the history of ideas prove,
than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as
material production is changed? The
ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
When people speak of ideas that revolutionize
society, they do but express the fact, that within the old society, the
elements of a new one has been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas
keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.
When the ancient world was in the last
throes, the ancient religions where overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th
century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death-battle with the
then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The
ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, merely gave expression to
the say of free competition within the domain of knowledge.” (Marx, Karl/Engels, Frederick, Manifesto of
the Communist Party, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1970/Reprinted in the
U.S.A., 2012, pages 48-49).
In this era, capitalism was in full swing
in Western Europe and America; two world-wide wars supplanted rather quiet
years of development (excluding constant regional and colonial wars).
“ [Recently], the world’s finance chiefs
ended talks in Washington soothed by calmer markets yet sobered by the prospect
that the relief may only be temporary.
“There was not exactly the same level of
anxiety,” IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said… when asked about the
mood of officials, from the institutions’ 189 countries meeting in the U.S.
capital. (…)
The respite won’t be celebrated for long,
as a host of risks to the global expansion loom including Britain’s possible
exit from the European Union, a leadership crisis in Brazil and an economic
slowdown in China. On top of that,
there’s the ongoing drag of the commodities slump on resource exporters; fresh
worry about Greece’s debt sustainability; a war in Syria and a refugee crisis
in Europe; and a U.S. presidential candidate who’s threatening to erect immigration and trade barriers.” (Mayeda, Andrew/Buergin, Rainer, Finance
chiefs on “alert”, not “alarm”, Report on Business/The Globe and Mail, Monday,
April 18, 2016, pages B 1, B 10).
“But German Finance Wolfgang Schaeuble said
there was no cause for excessive gloom.
‘We won’ stoke the alarmist talk, for which there is no reason in
substance,’ Mr. Schaeuble told
reporters. ‘We have moderate growth in
the various parts of the world economy,
but this moderate growth has nothing to do with any crisis
scenarios.’ (Finance chiefs, page B 10).
In Canada, “GDP growth slowed to a very
modest pace in the fourth quarter of 2015.
Investment in oil-and-gas- related industries contracted further, while
the rest of the economy continued to expand, supported by the past depreciation
of the Canadian dollar, and accommodative monetary and financial
conditions. As a result of the ongoing
weakness in commodity prices, business investment continued to decline. Growth was also restrained by further
significant adjustments in investment as firms drew down stocks from elevated
levels and by a partial reversal of the surge in exports in the previous
quarter.” (…)
Real GDP is estimated to have grown by 2.8
per cent in the first quarter, reflecting strength in monthly data on GDP,
merchandise trade, housing and retail s ales at the start of the year. (…)
Overall, the Bank (of Canada) now estimates
that real GDP growth will pick up in the first half of 2016 to average roughly 2
per cent, somewhat stronger than anticipated in January. “ (Bank of Canada,
Canadian Economy, Monetary Policy Report, Ottawa, April 2016, pages 10-11).
But the economic situation is rather more
dramatic in Russia. At the time when
the Communists were in power, it was without “rosy glasses” rather less
complicated for the people living in the former Soviet Union.
“… quantitative improvements were not
enough. I was necessary greatly to
enlarge the ouput
of machinery, and therefore of the iron, steel and coal industries. Still more was it necessary to improve the
management of industry, by introducing more national industrial methods, which
old managers had never learned.
It was there problems which led to two
important speeches by Stalin, in the courses of 1931, devoted to questions of
industrial management, and forcibly presenting a series of suggestions entirely
novel and startling for many managers of public enterprises.
In the first, at a conference of industrial
managers (February, 1931), Stalin insisted that, unless Russia increased the
tempo of her development, she would fall behind the rest of the world as she
had done so often in her history – with the result that she would be beaten, as
she had been by the
Mongols in the 13th century
and by the Turks and Swedes, Poles and Lithuanians, British, French and
Japanese in later ages. ‘We are fifty or
a hundred years behind the advanced countries.
We must make good distance in ten years.
Either we do it or they crush us,’ said Stalin. For this it was necessary for factory
managers, and particularly Communists, to master the technique of every part of
their factory.” (Rothstein, Andrew, A History of the U.S.S.R., First published
in Britain in 1950/ Reprinted in the U.S.A. in 2013, page 1960).
However,
“the more Socialist industry and
agriculture develop, the more desperate … becomes the resistance of the
remnants of former exploiting classes.
When the Workers’ State was tolerating their existence as rich peasants
and traders, they hoped for the gradual undermining of the Socialist elements
in economy by means of the development of private trade and agriculture. As these were eliminated, their hatred intensified
to an extreme degree. The development of
Socialism means that those elements now find employment in some of the branches
of Soviet industry and trade. They find
employment at a time when whole branches of industry that never previously
existed are being established in the country, when millions of backward and
individualistic peasants are being absorbed into industry and are bringing many
of their old peasant habits with them.
Even without the activity of class enemies in Soviet industry, this
would be a period of considerable strain and difficulty. (…)
One can understand that a certain amount of
honest mistakes and middle muddle could occur in Soviet industry in the course
of the great change through which it is passing. There is the opportunity of the class
enemies. “(Campbell, J. R., Soviet Policy and Its Critics, Victor Gollancz
Ltd., 1939, London/Reprinted by Red Star Publishers, 2015, page 123).
Let’s proceed.
Today, the bourgeoisie is using any means
to preserve and alleviate its wealth, thus, it has access to tax haven like in
the Bahamas and other southern islands to avoid paying taxes in Canada and
patriate the whole at their convenience.
Nevertheless, the workers, artists and
progressive intellectuals are making their way through to denounce the
situation and stop these injustices.
For example, the “husband-and-wife team of
author Naomi Klein and documentary filmmaker Avi Lewis” took the initiative to
draft The Leap Manifesto. Hereto are
some proposals of this one as reported by journalist Barrie McKenna:
“The goals of making Canada’s electricity
industry 100-per-cent renewable within 20 years and the entire country
fossil-fuel-free by 2050 have captured a lot of the attention. But the plan goes much further, advocating a
ban on oil and gas pipelines, hydraulic fracturing, new oil-tanker traffic and
Canadian ownership of foreign mining projects. (…)
The manifesto also calls for some very
expensive [sic!] projects, including national child care, high-speed rail and
public transit linking every community in country, as well as rebuilding ‘decaying’
public infrastructure. (…)
The manifesto proposes to pay for Canada’s
economic transformation with steep tax hikes, including new taxes financial
transaction, a carbon tax, higher resources royalties, higher corporate incomes
taxes and levies on the wealthy.
Taxing financial transactions might seem
like another promising revenue generator in a $2-trillion dollars
economy.” (McKenna, Barrie, The Leap
Manifesto, Report on Business/The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Saturday, April 16th,
2016, page B 16).
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