I was a Green Party advocate for years and then due to disenchantment with representative politics have been slowly moving farther left toward the Libertarian Socialist/Anarchist perspective - focusing on my immediate group of friends and colleagues to implement change and awareness on the local level (guerilla gardening, permaculture, co-ops, community sharing of resources and abilities). But, my inner cynicism asks if such efforts would ever truly create a watershed movement that would eventually overtake the state or cause it to become a non-factor. Or, will this truly cause people to become self-sustainable without need for gov't/corporate intervention or help? As if they are ever their to help in the first place.
It amazes me that people pretend Obama to be a Social-Democrat or "leftist" as many on FOX news will most likely call him. Furthermore, many of my moderate Libs and conservative friends have no clue about the history of the left, anarchism nor even truly of Marx. And these are educated people!
Most rebuttal that it is just a good idea on paper, but will never work when implemented in reality. That's all I ever get!
So, if social reform is the answer (or one of the many to implement the most significant change), then it appears to me that the Democratic party has completely lost direction and focus in its lurch ever rightward.
In the meantime, I wonder how one can mobilize people or form struggles to push for these "tax" changes within the system. Has this been done in the past and what has been the historical success rate? Anyone have some links on where I can find information?
Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
On Mar 12, 2008, at 4:39 PM, Paul Papadeas wrote:
> Is it plausible to have a citizen's movement on pushing our elected
> representatives for a "swiss-style wealth tax" in this country as
> Doug discussed the benefits in his book "Wall Street". I'm
> fascinated by some of the measures that can be taken at this point
> realistically to create an equal level playing field so to speak.
>
> Where do Obama and Hillary stand in relation to these measures
> (including Tobin Tax, admitting to support higher Income Taxes for
> the Billionaires and millionaires, taxing of domestic financial
> transactions, etc). Are they for highly regulating the financial
> industry as well as getting rid of the idea of Corporate Personhood?
They would be forcefully against a wealth tax or a Tobin tax or anything other than a mild increase in the top income tax rate, a la Clinton in 1993. I suspect that the current financial crisis might lead to some talk of re-regulation of finance, but it's not going to be much unless things get pretty bad. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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