http://www.attac.org/ang/index.html
Welcome to ATTAC
You will find in this site all the information concerning the association and its work. The documents accessed from the menus on the left are mostly in French, or are translated into English by our translation group. You may also find these documents in their language of origin. It is just a question of – together – re-appropriating the future of our world.
You wish : To get to know more about us Attac?
What ATTAC proposes
What ATTAC requires
Retrieving information You will find all information available by accessing the left menu. It is classified by the nature of its source.
Furthermore, we have built up documentation on the issue of the new plans for liberalisation
Participating to our work Various opportunities are offered:
Discussion lists by electronic mail; Several different working groups; Our actions in your neighbourhood. For that purpose, just select the "Actions" part in the left menu.
ATTAC ?
Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions for the benefit of Citizens.
A group linking citizens, associations, trade unions and newspapers founded ATTAC in France on June 3rd, 1998 around the platform. The idea for this initiative came from an editorial article written by Ignacio Ramonet: "Disarm the markets", published in Le Monde Diplomatique in December 1997.
An extract from the editorial: The Tobin Tax, named after the American Nobel prize winner for economics who proposed it in 1972, [would allow] for the modest taxation of all transactions on the foreign exchange markets in order to stabilise them, and at the same time, raise sums of money from the international community.
At a rate of 0.1%, the Tobin Tax would obtain an annual sum of about 166 billion dollars, twice the amount needed per year to eradicate extreme poverty between now and the beginning of the century.
What ATTAC proposes
In France: to reflect, inform, unite, feed the debate, make oneself heard. This demands that a large number of local groups in France, capable of influencing public opinion and elected representatives, make known the economic and social consequences produced by financial speculation and to register ATTAC’s concerns in current events: debates at the national Assembly, European summits, Davos meetings , general meetings of the International Monetary Fund, negotiations on commercial treaties etc.
At the international level: to extend the actions carried out in France. Capital flows have no frontiers. By definition, taxing speculation concerns international arrangements. In practically every country there exist women and men, organisations, groups whose concerns – sometimes whose activities – are similar to those of ATTAC. ATTAC’s wish is to be able to reflect, debate and work with them and, taking any differences into account, to achieve as much convergence as possible in all our efforts.
Numerous contacts have already been made and will develop.
What ATTAC requires
The philosophy of laissez-faire and the free market, which tends to dominate the international exchange scene, has nothing fatal or inevitable about it. It is possible to impose greater transparency over the movement of capital, over the realities of tax havens. It is possible to impose international regulation, a greater social control over this money, the right by ordinary people to intervene in the financial sphere. In 1972, James Tobin, the winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, advanced the idea of the moderate taxation on all speculative transactions on the foreign exchange markets, in order to permit governments to find margins of autonomous control over economic policy.
Since then, this idea has been taken up on numerous occasions. Numerous political parties in the world have proposed this kind of solution.(e.g. in English speaking countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States).
In France too, Lionel Jospin in his presidential campaign, Philippe Seguin, the Financial Commission of the National Assembly have all declared themselves favourable to a solution of this type. A resolution moving in this direction was presented to the European Parliament.
The debate must therefore grow. This is what ATTAC hopes to bring about by producing information, by organising national, European and international meetings. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ATTAC-Pr?sentation g?n?rale-Anglais.url Type: application/octet-stream Size: 87 bytes Desc: not available URL: <../attachments/19980911/ad009f45/attachment.obj>