>The idea that bosses always pay taxes formally levied on workers is a
>useful abstraction to illustrate a genuine tendency within capitalism;
>but you shouldn't mistake that abstraction for the reality, which is
>determined by a specific class struggle at a specific place and time.
What is determined by specific conditions at different times is how much workers get paid and by that I mean how much they take home in their pocket as opposed to some abstract nominal wage. The bosses will always want that to be as little as possible, the workers will always want the opposite. As you say, the relative success of each side of this class struggle goes back and forth.
You obviously have it in your mind that if the boss has to pay less payroll tax on wages, they can afford to be more generous in what they pay to workers. But it doesn't matter what they can afford, what workers actually get will depend on market conditions and, to a lesser degree how hard they are willing to fight. Rarely does a boss pay more than he has too, rarely is a worker willing to take less than he can get.
If the bosses costs are higher, he might have to take less profit, or he might even have to go out of business, but he can't just "transfer more or less of the cost of the tax (or any other cost) to the workers" at will. You need to realise that he's already paying as little as he can get away with. If he wasn't, he'd soon be put out of business by a competitor who does understand the facts of business life.
This is all obvious when you think it through.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas