May 15, 2009
Thoughts on Countering Holocaust Denial
Earlier today I did some door-to-door leafleting in Dagenham, in advance of the coming Euro and Council elections. I was handing out anti-BNP leaflets, which highlighted the fact that BNP councillors in Dagenham have been, aside from anything else, utterly rubbish at being councillors. In particular, they hardly turn up to any council meetings, and they propose mad money-wasting policies when they do bother to turn up. Plus they take crazy measures like voting to boycott the British Olympic team (presumably on the grounds that some of the medal-winners are non-white).
This kind of anti-BNP literature is likely to have the most impact in areas which have rewarded the BNP at the ballot box, not because of the Party’s stance on race issues, but because they claim to be a better alternative than traditional political parties. The need for this sort of approach has been highlighted by Rowenna Davis, here, and was likewise stressed to me by my friend Duncan, a long-time anti-facist campaigner.
Certainly, much of the BNP’s support – and some of its political base – is now made up of individuals who do not see their political purpose exclusively in terms of racial confrontation, but as an alternative to traditional politics which are perceived to have failed.
Yet it remains the case that BNP leader Nick Griffin is a denier of the Holocaust:
“I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into lamp shades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the earth is flat … I have reached the conclusion that the ‘extermination’ tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie and latter witch-hysteria.”
As he put it.
Another prominent BNP member, Mark Collett, former head of the Youth BNP, once told an undercover BBC camera man that he would rather bring up children in 1930s Germany than modern Britain, and who said:
“There’s not a European country the Jews haven’t been thrown out of. When it happens that many times, it’s not just persecution. There’s no smoke without fire.”
The fact remains, the core of the BNP is a group of racist, white-supremacist, homophobic, anti-semitic holocaust deniers.
Obviously, I oppose such people. Yet I was thinking to myself today, why exactly do I reject the claim that the holocaust never happened? You see, I’m a self-scrutinising kind of guy; I like to check that I know why I think what I think.
A number of reasons came to mind. Firstly, I was taught back in school that the holocaust happened. On balance, I find the likelihood of schoolchildren being duped by a decades-long international conspiracy perpetrated by governments across the globe in secret league with a sinister cabal of Jews unlikely. Certainly, I find it far less likely than the idea that this horrific event never actually happened. In addition, I’ve since read books like Primo Levi’s The Truce/If This Is A Man and they struck me as anything but the works of a conspiracy. Rather, they read like the tortured recollections of genuine survivors.
Secondly, it always seems to me indicative that the people who deny the holocaust tend to be thuggish anti-semites…and who seem to be keen to deny the holocaust as a way of making it happen. That makes me think that it did happen, and the conspiracy theorists are therefore especially dangerous.
Thirdly, I’ve been to Auschwitz-Birkenau. It seemed to me that there was simply no way that such a monstrous place was anything but what the history books claimed: an industrialised site of calculated mass-murder. In particular, the memory of mounds of human hair has never left me, and still makes me feel unsettled several years on.
But let’s suppose that I was a person who didn’t pay attention in school, and who hadn’t observed the antics of anti-semite thugs (albeit from a distance) and who hadn’t been fortunate enough (for want of a better word) to visit Auschwitz.
There are more powerful reasons than those.
In particular, I remember hearing the testimony of Arek Hersh, a holocaust survivor. It was seeing the tattoo on his arm, hearing him describe hiding bread in his boot to survive, looking into his eyes as he spoke of the horrors he witnessed, that convinced me that this was undoubtedly and without question for real.
Similarly, my former philosophy tutor Bob told me about his own father, who as a soldier was one of the first British troops to liberate the death camps in 1945. Bob said that his primary reason for knowing that holocaust deniers were liars was simple: “Why would my Dad lie? Why would my Dad be unable to sleep for years afterwards, tormented by the memories of what he’d seen, unless it had really happened?”
Those reasons for me have always been the most powerful. Yet those reasons will increasingly be denied to future generations. As time takes its toll, all we will have left are written accounts, photographs and the remains of the death camps. Indeed, this makes a powerful case for why Auschwitz-Birkenau must remain open to the public no matter how distasteful it is to have such a place become – in effect – a tourist attraction.
But it also means that in coming years, holocaust deniers like the BNP’s core leaders will find that their perverted goal – denying the holocaust in an attempt to repeat it – becomes easier to pursue. As living testimony inevitably fades away, we must compensate by fighting to make sure that the deniers’ malevolent misrepresentation of history never has a place in civilized minds or civilized society.
May 13, 2009
The BNP Get Smart
This morning my Mum had a leaflet from the British National Party put through her door. She lives in the North West, where the BNP are campaigning hard to secure the 8% of the vote they will need for leader Nick Griffin to be elected as their first MEP.
Here’s the leaflet:
Gone are the days in which the BNP would publish lunacy along the lines of “the Government is building 5 new cities the size of Birmingham to house illegal immigrants”. They’ve gotten smarter. Now they produce leaflets which ordinary right-of-centre voters may be taken-in by. Even the remarks about Muslims are no more than the stock-in-hate you can find in the Daily Express or Daily Mail every day.
I say “taken-in” because if most people knew that the BNP is in reality a party of holocaust-denying, homophobic, violent, neo-Nazi thugs – with a particularly poor track-record in elected office – they wouldn’t vote for them.
But many people don’t realise – and that’s one of the reasons the BNP at present stand to do well.
Certainly Gordon Brown has helped them; look how the British Jobs for British Workers slogan has been gleefully appropriated on this flier. The Telegraph newspaper may also have serious questions to answer in a month’s time; releasing MP’s expenses details as it did will have fuelled an “anti-politics” vote that the BNP will almost certainly benefit from.
The point is, it’s more important than ever to do the following things:
- Vote in the EU Elections: I don’t care who for – as long as it’s not the BNP. The proportional representation system means that every vote for another party is a vote against the BNP
- Encourage everyone you know to vote, be it for UKIP, Green, Tory, Labour, Lib Dem or whoever. Anyone except the BNP.
- Campaign: On Friday I will be in Dagenham doing anti-BNP leaflet deliveries. Got to the Hope Not Hate website and see how you can get involved.
This one matters. It’s become a tired old cliche, but Edmund Burke was right: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men [and women!] do nothing”.
EDIT: Important food for thought by Rowenna Davis at Liberal Conspiracy
Say Hello to Your New Masters
Polls presently put Gordon Brown at a popularity level below that of Michael Foot, with the Tories gleefully looking at the prospect of a landslide victory.
It’s worth having an advance look at some of our masters-to-be.
Take, for example, comments made on Monday in the House of Commons by Tory MPs about the Tamil protests taking place in Parliament Square.
First up, Gerald Howarth MP for Aldershot:
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yet again, our capital city has been brought to a standstill by a bunch of demonstrators who have, in effect, occupied Parliament square for about six weeks. I have raised the matter with you before. Although it is true that Members have had access, albeit not to the main entrance of the House—we have had restricted access—there are nevertheless hundreds of thousands of people out there going about their business, who have had their business lives and their personal lives disrupted by the demonstration, at enormous cost to them and their businesses, as well as inconvenience. I know that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has had added to his list of things to do that which you asked him over the weekend to do, but I have raised the matter with you before. It is surely unacceptable that these people should be allowed to take over Parliament square and disrupt the entire centre of our capital city. I wonder what on earth the Metropolitan Police Commissioner is doing about it, bearing in mind that every police officer to whom I have spoken has made it clear to me that it is his view that the Commissioner will take no action, because after the G20 they are completely frit of doing anything for fear of ending up in court themselves.
As you can see, Mr Howarth is simply outraged at the gross inconvenience this “bunch of demonstrators” have caused him. What’s that? Their families are being slaughtered and they feel mass protest is all they can do to try and help them? Well I’m sorry, but Mr Howarth is suffering restricted access to Parliament! Have these protesters no sense of priority?!
Furthermore, let’s not forget the poor Metropolitan Police! Those valiant defenders of freedom – the same ones who hid their identities and perhaps even used agents provocateurs to incite violent confrontation where there was none – are now being constrained by the fear that if they assault innocent people (who then die), they could end up in court! What a terrible state of affairs we find ourselves in. A sign of our broken society no doubt.
Next up, Sir Patrick Cormack, MP for South Staffordshire:
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. When you have your discussions later this week, will you please discuss with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner the advisability of bringing in an implement that would be used in virtually every other capital city—the water cannon?
Quite right! Water cannons are completely appropriate in a non-riot situation, when protesters are using sit-down tactics featuring a great many older people and small children. Thank you, Sir Cormack.
This wonderful idea – knocked down by the Speaker – is followed by the delightful Sir Nicholas Winterton, of Macclesfield:
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your advice, because I was personally involved in Parliament square this morning? I was coming in by car and I was almost at Chancellor’s Gate when the Tamil demonstrators burst out of Parliament square and occupied the road. I was delayed in attending a meeting in the House. Indeed, I was held up for an hour and 10 minutes, until the police were able to sort out the traffic. Is it not the case that Members of Parliament and those associated with the House should have unimpeded access, and the police and the authorities should seek to guarantee that?
Those dastardly Tamils! Don’t they know what they’ve done?!Don’t they realise that Sir Winterton was late for a meeting?! These people just have no sense of priority; anyone would think they were deliberately trying to disrupt Parliamentary activities in order to draw attention to their causes. I guess they just don’t get it, do they, those silly Tamils?
In fairness, Mr Michael Martin- the Speaker – is hardly a shining example of counter-Tory perspective. Although technically disaffiliated, the present Speaker is drawn from the Labour benches. Some of his remarks are equally depressing:
Many of us were involved in demonstrations before we came into the House, because demonstrating is part of a democracy, but we would have those demonstrations and then leave. No one has ever expected a demonstration to hijack Parliament square and the roads, and thereby stop others performing their democratic duties.
…
I know that I might be in a bit of a bad mood today, but let me say that when authorisation is given for 50 people to demonstrate, it means 50 people. It does not mean tents or food stalls, or texts being sent to supporters to tell them to bring little children along. That is not part of the authorisation of the demonstration. As a former trade union officer, I know that when somebody co-operates with the authorities to obtain permission for a demonstration, they comply with the rules that they lay down. No one can say that that happened in this case.
Let me add a further thing, because it relates to what Sir Nicholas has said. People, including me, who have had to drive around the square have been put into a dangerous situation—the roads have been blocked off, because police officers have had to put their vans in the filter lane. So when anyone tells me that permission was given, I say that it was given for a limited number of people, not a mob.
Hardly bleeding-heart liberalism pouring from the Speaker’s chair there. But then, Martin is already a man in whom confidence has long been lost by most sections of Parliament.
The Tories, by contrast, are on their way in. Have a good hard look at our future masters.
May 12, 2009
An Open Letter to William Hague
Dear William Hague,
It seems fair to say that your political hero is William Wilberforce. You have written his biography, and on the third floor of 1 Parliament Street hangs a painting of you aside his image.
Let me applaud you on your choice of hero. Wilberforce was a great man, leading the campaign which culminated in the 1807 abolition of slavery in the British Empire. You, like Wilberforce, are a politician, and like him you are a social and political conservative. So you must have wondered: If Wilberforce were alive today, what would he be doing?
There are many worthy campaigns Wilberforce might champion were he alive. Thankfully, in terms of sheer evil, modern issues tend to fall short of the industrialised enslavement of human beings. Yet campaigns continue to be waged against international injustice; against the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable for the benefit of the rich and privileged.
Such a campaign is fought by the Tax Justice Network. Amongst other things, the Network campaigns against the use of tax havens by Trans National Corporations (TNCs). The use of tax havens – or “secrecy jurisdictions” – by TNCs directly contributes to keeping developing nations poor. This is because secrecy jurisdictions enable TNCs to avoid and evade paying taxes in the countries they operate in. Indeed, Oxfam estimates that developing countries miss out on up to $124 billion in lost income from offshore assets held in tax havens each year.
By not paying taxes in developing nations, TNCs do several things. Firstly, they facilitate what is known as capital flight. Rather than contributing funds to a developing nation via taxation, TNCs use tax havens to move funds overseas. This deprives developing nations of the funds they need to invest in infrastructure, healthcare and education – essential requirements for developing out of poverty. For example, the South African Revenue Service estimates that the South African tax gap ranges up to 30billion rand: 45% of total government revenues. This is largely owing to evasion by rich individuals and avoidance by companies.
Secondly, TNCs that use tax havens shift the burden of tax from the very richest – themselves – to the very poorest. In order to make up for the revenue lost to offshore financial centres, developing nations must increase the tax burden on ordinary people. Thus the poorest people in the world’s poorest nations shoulder the burden of tax, whilst the richest corporations avoid paying for the upkeep and improvement of the societies whose very existences allow them to become richer.
Thirdly, the use of tax havens by TNCs undermines democracy. As John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network writes:
“[A] primary aim of democratic representation involves the bargaining process between the citizens and elected representatives over taxing and spending. Most people are familiar with the complaints of eighteenth-century American colonists about taxation without representation, but the link between paying taxes in order to earn the right to representation is equally important.”[1]
When TNCs use tax havens to avoid and evade tax, they flout the authority of democratically elected regimes.
The global situation is a depressing one. Global Financial Integrity reports that in 2006 developing countries lost an estimated $858.6 billion–$1.06 trillion through illicit financial outflows. Much of that was due to tax haven abuse by TNCs[4].
At present, ours is a world in which the poorest are systematically undermined and exploited by the richest. The parallels with the mass industrialised slavery Wilberforce opposed are certainly not complete – but they exist. Thankfully, today’s TNCs do not physically enslave, abuse, sell, maim and kill the people of Africa. But through their use of tax havens they systematically deprive the World’s poorest of the funds needed to develop out of poverty.
I cannot imagine Wilberforce would have approved of that. Rather, I believe that if Wilberforce were alive today he would be a member of the Tax Justice Network.
Mr Hague, if polls are to be believed in a year’s time you will find yourself in government. Will you channel the spirit of Wilberforce and join the fight against the systematic exploitation of the world’s poorest by the richest? Or will you follow in the footsteps of all those men who opposed Wilberforce or did nothing? All those men whose names are now lost to history.
—
[1] John Christensen, Taxing Transnational Corporations by John Christensen, in Tax Justice, Mestrum and Kohonen eds, Pluto Press, 2009 pg. 125
May 11, 2009
Womens’ Magazines: As Harmful as Lads’ Mags?
This is a work in progress. I’ve put it up here in the hope of critical feedback, on a subject which it is incredibly hard to write accurately and intelligently about, yet which is of incredible importance. Constructive comments appreciated – raving “OMG u is a FEMINAZI ” idiocy will be ignored.
Attending a party the other week, I was introduced to the friend of a friend. Both being English, conversation rapidly turned to what we do for a living. It turned out he was a writer for a prominent teenage girls’ magazine, of the popular sort that line the shelves of British newsagents (you know, More, Just 17 – those ones).
He told me about his latest piece, entitled “Why do guys get over break-ups quicker than girls?” A little surprised, I asked whether he thought this was even true – to which he replied that actually he didn’t really think it was. But, he explained, that didn’t matter. He simply submitted three different versions to his editor – “a misogynistic version, a sympathetic version and a scientific version” – who would then mix -and-match the three to make a finished piece.
Alarm bells started ringing. Why – I asked myself – would a magazine aimed at teenage girls want to be running articles with a consciously misogynistic component? Figuring it wasn’t appropriate to critique a stranger’s breadwinning activities through the lens of gender equality (it’s not really party conversation), I asked a question I’ve pondered since first stumbling across girls’ mags as a wide-eyed 13 year old: are the graphically sexual letters on the problem pages real? “Nah,” came the answer. “The people who write those pages just make up whatever questions they feel like answering”.
Two weeks down the line, and alarm bells are still ringing. Magazines of this sort target young girls, at a formative stage in their sexualisation, when they are starting to think about sexualised emotional relationships in proto-adult terms. Yet at least one of these magazines apparently sees fit to run consciously misogynistic articles that endorse ludicrous gender stereotypes (e.g. that men inherently cope with sexual and emotional rejection better than women). It apparently sees fit to feature invented problem pages, which oscillate between graphic sexual description and relationship “advice” submitted to editors who wilfully encourage conscious misogyny.
Magazines of this sort are read by thousands of girls every week, and they must surely influence their emotional and sexual development. I find something deeply troubling about magazines which wilfully encourage girls to buy into false gender stereotypes. I find deeply troubling the existence of (invented) problem pages which, as far as I can tell, encourage girls to think of sex as a man-pleasing commodity, without emphasis on the emotional complexities of sexual relationships, and the importance of trust and intimacy to a healthy, adult sexual psyche.
Of course, when they grow up girls can graduate to “Lifestyle” magazines like Cosmopolitan, Gracia, Marie Claire etc. These magazines are stuffed with shopping and sex (“Forget thigh boots, fearsome whips and scary spike devices. Fetish is going mainstream” intones a copy of Company magazine). But in particular, these “Lifestyle” magazines push a series of core messages, perhaps the most prevalent being:
1) The primary objective of a woman’s life is to find “The One” (translation: rich, good-looking man) and keep him. Everything else is secondary.
2) You must never show insecurity to a potential “One”, or else he will flee. This means concealing many of your emotions despite being in a (supposedly) intimate relationship.
3) Never refuse sexual advances from your partner, or else he will go elsewhere. You can have no complaints about infidelity if you don’t put out – and that could lose you “The One”, thus defeating the primary objective.
In the process, magazines written and edited by women, which are read in turn by millions of other women, send out a clear message: a woman’s primary goal in life is not to achieve career success, financial and social independence, or to find a partner with whom she can achieve genuine intimacy by admitting her insecurities and being sexually honest. Instead, they tell women to preen themselves like parakeets, hide their inconvenient emotions and to become ever-willing receptacles for their partners’ appendages – all in the hope that a rich “One” will select them over rival parakeets.
The proponents of women’s lifestyle magazines – and their younger-sister versions – claim that they are “liberating” women. But it’s a funny kind of liberation that declares a woman’s goal is to get a man and keep him, in a country where women have yet to achieve equal pay, and where they make up just 20% of the national elected Parliament.
On the Guardian website there has recently been much discussion of the negative impacts of “lads’mags” upon women. Certainly, magazines like Nuts, FHM and Zoo promote derogatory, demeaning and misogynistic stereotypes of women. But it would be naive to ignore the other section of the newsagent’s shelf which also promotes demeaning and misogynistic stereotypes. The section specifically aimed at women themselves.
EDIT: More thoughts on this matter, here.
May 10, 2009
Newspeak
There’s a word politicians like to bandy about. It’s a powerful word, which invokes visions of empowerment and freedom. The problem is that, like many powerful words, it’s rather more complicated than a first glance might reveal.
The word I’m thinking about is “choice”.
Politicians love to tell the electorate they are being given a “choice”, and for a myriad number of reasons. “Choice” implies decentralisation, implies trusting individuals with the power to make their own decisions. “Choice” implies freedom. “Choice” implies ensuring that the best state of affairs will be brought about.
Unfortunately, these implications aren’t always straightforwardly realised when put into practice.
We generally think of the word “choice” as having positive connotations. Often this is with good reason. When it comes to making a decision about what I’m going to do this afternoon – either read the paper or go to the gym – I would rather that the decision were left to me; that I personally have the choice between the two options, rather than somebody else deciding for me.
In such a case, “choice” is empowering and it does promote freedom and it will lead to the best state of affairs (me being allowed to live my own life).
If life were always so straightforward, the world would be an easier place to live in. But it isn’t. “Choice” is not unambiguously and in all cases a positive thing.
To see this, imagine the following. You, dear reader, are given a choice between a large pile of dog poo and a slightly smaller pile of dog poo. The choice is totally free – you can pick whichever pile of dog poo you prefer.
Is this choice empowering, does it bring you freedom? Technically, it does. You have the empowered freedom to pick a pile of dog poo. But the point is you still end up with a pile of dog poo. Now, suppose that you have no particular desire for dog poo – let’s say you want a pile of food instead – the fact you have been given a choice is fairly meaningless. In this case, what you wanted was food but what you ended up with was dog poo. The fact you could choose which pile of dog poo you received is hardly the point.
So we see that “choice” is not unambiguously a positive thing. It can be a good thing – but only when it is bound up with other positive considerations. Choice can be easily divorced from other positive considerations, and in the process it can lose its status as a desirable and positive thing.
Now let me be clear. I am not “against choice”. What I am against is meaningless choice. I am against politicians dressing up policies and decisions in the language of “choice” in order to coat them with a veneer of freedom and empowerment, with the implication of the best outcome being achieved – when in reality this may not be the case.
For example, any policy discussion or publication about the NHS will invariably feature the language of choice: of giving patients “the power to choose”. Perhaps this is a good thing. Perhaps allowing patients to choose between doctors and hospitals will drive standards upwards and result in better national health care free at the point of need.
Perhaps. Or perhaps it is part of an ideological re-structuring of British healthcare by which it is to be turned into an artificial market on the belief that markets are always best. An ideological restructuring begun under Thatcher, continued under Blair and Brown. An ideology which views sick people going to the doctor as being rational healthcare consumers seeking to maximise utility preferences – and in the process endorses a highly ideological concept of human psychology (which we may want to question).
Given those possibilities, it is worth asking a question. Do sick people going to the doctor really want “choice”, or do they simply want to know that whichever hospital they go to they are guaranteed a high level of healthcare free at the point of need?
Now, it may be the case that the highest level of quality is best achieved by giving patients choice. But it’s not straightforwardly clear that this is the case – and so the language of “choice” cannot be taken as unambiguously empowering and good for people. If increasing “choice” in the NHS leads to worse hospitals and less responsive doctors (which, given the fact the NHS is a] not a market and b] even if it was, markets fail), then choice may not necessarily be a good – or the best – thing in this situation.
But at present the default from politicians of all sides is to emphasise choice as though it were unambiguously empowering, and unambiguously guaranteed to yield the best outcomes. That to me seems a grave and serious mistake.
So let me repeat: I am not “against choice”. In many circumstances choice is a wonderful thing, and any free society will need to let ordinary people make a range free choices. What I am against is meaningless choice dressed up in the rhetoric of empowerment, freedom and good consequence. I am against the rhetoric of choice which, like a good piece of Newspeak, invokes images of freedom, empowerment and the best possible outcomes when in fact the policies disguised by such rhetoric may disempower, may reduce freedom, and may lead to worse outcomes for the very people being sold by the language of choice.
Appendix
Why has an effective political consensus formed over the rhetoric of “choice” as unambiguously a good thing, by politicians of all sides, and hence become a stock part of the policy and ideological discourse? Three possibilities spring to mind:
- Some politicians knowingly and consciously use the language of choice to dupe voters. They know that the rhetoric of choice sounds good, and can be used to introduce policy which would otherwise be viewed as unacceptable by the electorate. Here I think especially of ministers like Ed Balls and Jack Straw.
- Some politicians are buying into the ideological notion that markets and market-based thinking can be introduced into most, if not all, areas of life and policy. These politicians transpose the theory of microeconomics – that efficient outcomes and utility maximisation are achieved by allowing rational agents to choose freely in a free market situation of high information levels etc – into other areas of human life. These politicians may be quite well-meaning, though I believe them to be fundamentally misguided.
- The rest of the political classes who employ the rhetoric of choice have simply absorbed the prevailing consensus, and in the process accepted it as normality without ever pausing to wonder if the matter is not so straightforward as they have supposed. This probably covers the majority of politicians who are neither manipulative nor highly ideological, but just become wedded to the prevailing conventional wisdom.
May 9, 2009
12 Wasted Years
I’m still exceptionally busy at the moment, due to a combination of work plus getting back into Muay Thai on a fairly serious basis.
Maybe I will blog something tomorrow. But maybe I will just read the paper and something of the four books I aim to get through before the end of May.
In the meantime, read the excellent Polly Toynbee’s lament for 12 wasted years.
EDIT: Also, if you’re looking for more things to read, Peter has written an excellent little post highlighting one of the many things that is wrong with libertarianism.
May 6, 2009
Three Points from Westminster Hall
This afternoon I attended the Westminster Hall debate Tax Avoidance and Evasion, called by David Taylor, MP for North-West Leicestershire.
It was instructive on a number of counts. You can read the transcript here.
Thing worth noting are as follows.
Firstly, MPs are now taking their tips directly from the Tax Justice Network, and deploying those tips in Parliamentary debate. For example, in his (excellent) introductory speech, David Taylor stated:
Indeed, the Government have argued against automatic TIEAs [Tax Information Exchange Agreements], saying that developing countries might not have the capacity to use the data that would be transferred and that the information transfer would thus be for nought. That argument is patently absurd and deeply patronising to developing countries. It suggests that they do not have, and could not quickly develop, the ability to deal with large quantities of data of the sort that automatic information exchange would generate. In fact, many developing countries already use international software and data sources to deal with vast quantities of data—most obviously, when one’s passport is scanned at any customs point when entering an airport in almost any country at any income level.
Which you will notice, is very similar to something written on the TJN blog last week:
One influential voice at the meeting yesterday (whose name or affiliation we can’t reveal under the Chatham House Rule) said that TJN’s preferred model of automatic information exchange could not work because developing nations cannot handle it.
Really? First, this argument suggests that if it is so difficult, there must be a huge volume of information to flow south, confirming TJN’s case. Second, it is extraordinarily patronising to these countries to tell them that they don’t have the capacity. As Richard Murphy has pointed out, automatic information exchange requires an Excel spreadsheet, and not much more. Third, it shows political cowardice.
Last year John Christensen flew to Zambia. This is how he described his arrival.
“On entry, the Zambian police took my passport, scanned it through USAID computers, and in seconds they could get my police records anywhere in the world. Ditto in Kenya, and every place in the South in the past three years.”
Furthermore, Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK and the Tax Justice Network was mentioned no less than three times in the course of the Westminster Hall debate. Twice favourably (including praise from no less a man than Vince Cable), and one time not so favourably – by David Gauke, Conservative MP for South-West Hertfordshire. No doubt, Richard will be offering his reply in due course. Richard has supplied his comprehensive reply here.
The point is, a small international NGO like the Tax Justice Network is now driving debate in Parliament. The downside is that the MPs favourable to the TJN in today’s debate were all Labour and Liberal Democrat. Yet it’s the Tories who are on their way in. Work to do on that front, no doubt.
Secondly, it’s worth just reproducing what Vince Cable had to say. There’s a damn good reason this man commands as much respect as he does, so when he speaks people should – and do – listen:
The big question that the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire asked was, what do we do about it? It is partly about taking international action and partly about domestic policy. Internationally, the fundamental issue raised by the G20 was transparency, and he raised two of the three key issues, the first of which is the automatic exchange of information. The current OECD white list is very good at creating transparency, but it leaves substantial hurdles when it comes to getting information from tax havens. Information exchange has to made automatic to be effective. As he mentioned, the Government are resisting such a measure. There are good reasons for resisting automatic exchange in some cases—one would not want automatic exchange of information with, say, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, for human rights reasons—but, as a general principle, between countries that have satisfactory human rights, automatic exchange of information should be the norm.
The second transparency issue that the hon. Gentleman raised was country-by-country accounting. As several hon. Members mentioned, it is an issue for the IASB. There is a lot of foot-dragging, and political leadership is needed, but that is the way to stop the systematic abuse through transfer pricing, the manipulation of profits and the minimisation of corporate tax payment.
The hon. Gentleman did not mention the third transparency issue, namely the identification of the beneficial owners of trusts and companies. A lot of tax avoidance through tax havens takes place by hiding the names of the ultimate owners. The EU savings directive precludes that, but it is not being enforced. One difficulty that the UK has in being righteous about the matter is that our trust system is incredibly opaque. Many trusts are never registered and other countries might reasonably ask, “Why are the British getting heavy-handed about this when their own system of tax law in relation to trusts is so opaque?” Until we deal with that problem, it will be impossible to crack down effectively on the tax haven system.
To re-cap: Information exchange, country-by-country reporting, and identification of tax dodgers – plus a long hard stare in the mirror for the UK Government. Precisely what the TJN has been calling for.
Thirdly, let’s have a quick look at what happens when tax haven apologists dip their toes in the pool of debate. It’s not pretty.
Witness Tony Baldry, Tory MP for Banbury, pretending that there isn’t really a great big elephant called Systematic International Injustice standing in the room:
…in none of the briefings that I have been sent have I seen evidence supporting the suggestion that developing countries are losing huge amounts of revenue each year through commercial tax evasion. Not a single article in the Library pack gives any statistics or evidence in support of that suggestion. I am not saying that it is incorrect, but I am bemused. If we are not careful, this will become an article of faith, and the danger of such articles of faith is that they can be used as alibis in other ways.
To which Vince Cable replied:
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he is suggesting that there is a lack of evidence on the subject of revenue loss from tax avoidance in developing countries? Is he aware of the Christian Aid report on death and taxes that seems, on first sight, to be a very serious piece of econometric work? It suggests that somewhere between 10 and 15 per cent. of the revenue of developing countries, and medium and low-income countries, has been lost as a result of systematic manipulation of prices and, therefore, the revenue deriving from them?
Immediately following this, Baldry tried to switch to the issue of “tax competition” between developing nations, the process by which governments offer “tax holidays” to Trans National Corporations as incentives to invest. The reply from Andrew Stunell was swift and effective:
The hon. Gentleman seems to be developing an argument that poorer countries are giving such incentives of their free will to provide the right business environment to create jobs. Surely the reality is that the multinationals go on a reverse Dutch bidding war to see which country will give them the biggest discounts. One only has to look at copper pricing in Zambia to see how damaging it is to the income stream of poorer countries. Surely the balance of trade in that negotiation is very much with the larger multinational corporations and not with the developing countries’ Governments.
Later in the debate, after Baldry had seated himself, MP George Muddie dragged him back into the firing line:
To return to the comments of the hon. Member for Banbury, I wonder whether it is any coincidence, or accident, that the latest adventure of Barclays is to set up an offshore bank in Ghana. If the hon. Gentleman is not alarmed at that, I do not know what world he lives in. Certainly, all the development agencies rightly raise issues of money laundering, drug money and tax evasion. They all see the move as something that should not happen. I want to ask the Minister whether we have made any representations—such things have been done by Governments in the past—to suggest that Barclays should not go ahead with the adventure.
Baldry did his best – whatever his reasons – to apologise for tax havens. In the open forum of debate, he didn’t stand a chance.
That speaks volumes.
What a shame that the Minister in attendance decided to read out a pre-prepared list instead of responding to what was actually said in the debate.
May 5, 2009
Explaining a basic economic point to Libertarians
I stumbled across a “reply” to my recent Liberal Conspiracy post here.
I found it via Mr Eugenides, here.
Both Mr Eugenides and “Brackenworld” are libertarians. They believe the state should be utterly minimal, and that taxation is an infringement upon the rights of citizens.
A quick word on libertarians. Philosopher Gerry Cohen has sumned up where they end up on the ethical scale quite nicely:
[According to Libertarians] If children are undernourished in our society, we are not allowed to tax millionaires in order to fund a subsidy on the price of milk to poor families, for we would be violating the rightss, and the ‘dignity’ of the millionaires. We cannot appeal that the affective liberty of the children (and the adults they will become) would be greatly enhanced at little expense to the millionaire’s freedom, for Nozick [foremost intellectual proponent of libertarianism] restrics any act which restricts freedom: he does not call for its maximisation.
That sums it up. Libertarians believe millionaires have an absolute right to their money. If the state taxes them to subsidise starving children, that is wrong and should be prohibited. If the millionaires decide they don’t want to give money to starving children, that is completely acceptable, and the state should have nothing to say or do about it.
If that looks ethically reprehensible to you, then you’re on the right track to seeing why libertarianism is a nutty, abhorent political philosophy adhdered to by either the utterly selfish and nasty, or the well-meaning but utterly deluded.
Anyway, to make a more substantive point, both Mr Eugenides, and a commentor on the “Brackenworld” “article”, make this point (as voiced by Mr E):
I can’t help wondering why the Left are so ready to believe that everyone who gets a tax bill for £50,000 will just grit their teeth and pay it, but putting 20p on a pint of beer will force average Joes like us to quit drinking. Either incentives matter, or they don’t.)
As it happens, a very simple piece of economic theory explains this.
We begin with the concept of elasticity of demand. This refers to the willingness or unwillingness of a consumer to continue buying a product should its price change. If a consumer has “elastic” demand for a product, small price changes will translate into big changes in demand, and vice versa.
So for example, if my elasticity of demand for chocolate bars is highly elastic, then a 10p increase in the price of chocolate bars will see my demand for chocolate bars fall significantly.
If my elasticity of demand for chocolate bars is highly inelastic, then a 10p increase in the price of chocolate bars will have little impact upon my demand for chocolate bars - i.e. my demand won’t be significantly reduced.
Simple concept, yes?
Let’s expand it a little. Elasticity of demand is influenced by disposable income. Disposable income is the income consumers have left to spend on goods and services; income which is neither taxed nor saved nor invested (leaving aside whether S=I at the micro level), at least in basic theory.
This is quite obvious, really.
After all, if my level of disposable income is very high, then a 10p increase in the price of chocolate bars won’t have an impact on me because I can easily absorb the price increase. So my demand for chocolate bars won’t be affected (significantly). If, by contrast, my disposable income is very low, then a 10p increase in the price of a chocolate bars may be far more significant – 10p represents more of a loss to me when I have a lower disposable income. in turn, this affects my demand for chocolate bars more significantly.
So disposable income affects elasticity of demand.
Now let’s put the piece together.
First: 10p extra on the price of beer is not analogous to a 10p increase of income tax as the Libertarians would have it
This is for the overwhelmingly simple reason that a 10p increase on a pint of beer is a price increase on a consumer good, designed to influence people’s demand for a product by interacting with their elasticity of demand. The idea behind putting the price of beer up is that the 10p increase will, by interacting with the elastic elasticity of demand of beer-drinkers, reduce beer consumption.
There is simply no analogy whatsoever with increases in tax rates for top earners. What top earners say is that if their taxes go up, they will leave the country. I’ve disputed that already. But whether or not they do, it has nothing to do with demand for a specific consumer good. It’s a general assessment of whether or not they want to stay in a country, and pay an extra 10p in every pound compared to what they already pay, over the massive threshold of £150,000 which puts them in the top 1% of UK earners.
It’s simply not analogous with demand for a specific consumer good.
2. But let’s grant that there is some weak analogy between elasticity of demand for a consumer good, and deciding whether or not to stay in a country
I suppose we could do this. I suppose we could say “rich people have an elasticity of demand for living in the UK”. It’s economic gibberish, of course, but let’s grant the analogy: that by putting up the rate of tax, this will impact upon whether rich people continue to live in the UK, because they have “elasticity of demand for living in the UK”.
The question now becomes: “how elastic or inelastic is rich people’s demand to stay in the UK” ?
My answer: their demand is highly inelastic. Translated: a 10p increase in the rate of tax they pay over the £150,000 threshold will not cause them to stop “demanding” living in the UK, because they have inelastic demand for this “good”. This was, in less bizarre language, what I argued in the Liberal Conspiracy article (plus the contention that we shouldn’t be bullied by such people even if they actually had elastic demand, and really would leave the country).
Now add in the above considerations about disposable income. The wealthiest 1% of the population have…surprise…the biggest disposable incomes! This means that they will have generally inelastic demand for goods and services because they have lots of money, hence price increases don’t affect them as much as poorer people.
Now, continuing the economic fiction that there is a “demand” for a “consumer good” which is “living in the UK”, we now note that the fact rich people already have loads of money means their demand for “living in the UK” is going to be fairly inelastic. Because the 10p tax increase takes a small chunk out of the huge pot they already have.
So even if we grant a ridiculous analogy with putting up 10p taxes on beer, there is just no economic case for saying that incentivising consumption patterns is akin to raising income taxes.
So the Libertarians show a basic lack of understanding of economics. Which is interesting, isn’t it? Perhaps it explains why the article by “Brackenworld” is so viciously offensive towards me. Better to play the man than the ball – especially when you lack a basic comprehension of what the balls in play are.
May 4, 2009
Rats and the Sinking Ship
Blogging has been light of late, due to the fact I’ve started a new part-time job with the Tax Justice Network, I have no internet connection at my flat, and have generally been doing other things. Like having a life in the real world. Sort of.
Anyway, returning to the “blogosphere” (stupid word), I just wanted to make a quick point about the Blairite rats leaving the sinking Brownite ship. I’m thinking here of Hazel Blears, Charles Clarke and Ruth Kelly especially.
I have no time for these three during the best of days.
Blears is a slavishly loyal Blairite zealot, who as George Monbiot has pointed out, stands for nothing but election. Depsite her rather unenthusiastic insistence on Saturday night that she was not trying to undermine Gordon Brown, after blatantly attacking Gordon Brown in yesterday’s Observer, it’s clear that she is continuing the Brown-Blair war. Continuing the war after her idol has departed – and it doesn’t take a great cynic to ponder whether she views herself as The Slippery One’s anointed successor.
Charles Clarke is another Blairite who’s been out in the cold ever since the Brown-Balls circus moved in to Number 10. So please, let’s not take his declaration that he is “ashamed to be a Labour MP” too seriously. This was a man who, as Home Secretary, led a ferocious attack on the rights of Britons to stand free and fair trial, whilst vigorously pushing on with the mad-cap assault on individual liberty which is the ID cards scheme. This is a man who embodies the worst of New Labour’s authoritarian distrust of ordinary people. In no way is he a champion of a better kind of politics. He is a factionalist, continuing the factional war which has defined New Labour as much as it’s infatuation with the City of London, it’s enslavement by the tabloid press – and its desire to control the lives of British citizens.
As for Ruth Kelly, this is a woman who is a member of Opus Dei. Opus Dei! An organisation whose express aim and purpose is to infiltrate governments and decision-making bodies around the world in order to further an extremely hard-line interpretation of Catholic doctrine, with the Pope and the Vatican seen as superior sources of authority than any elected head of state. A member of Opus Dei, who was once a Labour cabinet minister – and whose Catholic views were criticised for generating a serious conflict of interests with Labour efforts to grant equal rights to homosexuals. It beggars belief – but the message for today is to be under no illusion whatsoever that this woman represents anything good about Labour that could be seen as a desirable alternative to the fecal King Midas who is Gordon Brown.
What these Blairite rats are really proving, in the loud and public process of leaving the sinking Brownite ship, is not that they represent a “better way”.
They don’t.
They represent the fact that senior Labour figures are more pre-occupied and concerned with perpetuating factional wars and undermining a flailing Prime Minister than with undertaking last-chance measures in advance of the Tory return to office. In this final year, Labour could rally itself and undertake legislative measures which would safeguard the poorest and most vulnerable. Those who will suffer the most when Cameron, Osborne and the 17 other millionaires in the Shadow Cabinet come to power. Those people Labour was traditionally meant to help and defend, but who have been conspicuously forgotten for the past 12 years.
Instead they fight, bicker and point-score. What a fitting end to their time in Government.
