|
i dont really have time for this at the moment, so i'll only post a couple short statements and return to the thread later.
1. you can't isolate tax policies from the larger neoliberal economic ideology that situate them. "supply side" is a cocktail napkin diagram that functions as a popularizing meme/name for some aspects of neoliberalism--but who get to see the whole foul package of neoliberalism on display at the structural adjustment show nearest you.
as ustwo's posts show, a neoliberal perspective does nto enable you to say anything coherent about the new deal in particular, or about keynesian economic ideology more generally--so presumably the period after world war 2, which saw the most coherent and functional phase of capital accumulation yet, and which was shaped by keynesian policies, is a giant accident which simply functioned long enough to prevent collapse, only to be rescued from itself by the mighty ronald reagan and the laffer curve.
2. there is no doubt that the period of supply side hoodoo has generated the largest transfer of wealth into the hands of the economic elite in history. the stats on this are easy to find. so now, thanks to supplyside, the us has a distribution of wealth on par with that of guatemala. way to go.
i see the ideology responsible for this travesty as not about what it says it is about: it is not about tax cuts as a way to stimulate economic activity in general, simply because tax cuts in supplyside world do not operate in isolation--it is about the dismantling of mechanisms that purchase political consent and social solidarity within capitalism as a device to cope with increased uncertainty (globalizing capitalism) by decreasing political risk. it is an abandonment of any sense that capitalism is a destructive system--which is self-evidently is (even if you see it as "creative destruction" in the schumpeter mode)...because supplyside also treats as axiomatic that capital generates wealth and not labor, its tactic regarding taxation is to build (fictive) cash reserves for the holders of capital with the idea that they will invest it in new forms of economic activity--as if the present holders of capital and "entrepreneurs" are the same social group (which isnt true)....
supplyside reflects a wholesale devaluation (in the ideological and material senses) of labor, replacing it with fantasies of capital on its own as the motor of all things; neoliberals prefer to pretend that the economy really is separate from all other areas of social activity (wholly untenable) primarily as a way to avoiding social and political consequences of their own policies.
neoliberals might not like the state as a mechanism for redistributing wealth, but they sure do like like all the repressive functions of the state. they regard trade unions as Evil and all public political action as hooliganism. so the consequences of neoliberal policies are criminalized, and expressions of dissent treated as evidence of fifth column activity. this is of a piece with the ludicrous position regarding poverty as a reflection of some moral failing on the part of the poor.
the position on taxation popularized via laffer's cocktail napkin drawing is only a small part of the problem that is neoliberalism. you cant isolate taxation from the rest of it.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|