The trouble with trying to balance the budget by reducing fraud and evasion (and there was a similar problem when they tried to do it in Greece) is that fraudsters and tax evaders are part of the economy. Improving tax collection rates during a recession has the same macro effect as raising the taxes, just a slightly different distribution and no guarantee that the redistributive effects are even going to be desirable - as Varoufakis found out, you start out by pledging to take on the big tax avoiders, and then somehow end up with a scheme aimed at cigarette kiosks and casual labourers.
best dd
(PS: hello!)
On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 11:25 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgand2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I’ve linked below to a richly detailed examination and friendly criticism
> of the radical program which has propelled Jeremy Corbyn into the
> leadership of the Labour Party.
>
> The British Marxist economist Michael Roberts acknowledges that Corbyn is
> “a longstanding fighter for labour causes and for socialism” and that his
> campaign deserved the support of “all those wanting a better life for the
> majority”. But he doubts its Keynesian program can be realized in practice
> under a Corbyn government.
>
> Its ambitious public spending plans rest on raising the corporate tax rate
> and ending the tax loopholes and subsidies to the private sector which are
> costing British taxpayers an hundreds of billions of dollars annually by
> some estimates. Other measures favoured by Corbyn call for a vast program
> of public investment to be financed by the Bank of England directed to
> engage in “People’s quantitative easing”; bringing the privatized railways
> and utilities back into public ownership, and the restoration of trade
> union rights.
>
> Even should a Labour left government under Corbyn have the political will
> and capacity to take on the corporations, Roberts argues that its proposed
> reforms would cause capital flight, collapse the British economy and cause
> widespread unemployment. The privately-owned banks, manufacturers, and
> retailers are dependent on state support, without which they’re incapable
> of generating adequate profits, investment, and jobs.
>
> Roberts may appear to be in aligned with the British media, mainstream
> economists, and Labour and well as Conservative MP’s, all of whom have
> predicted economic ruin should the Labour left try to implement its
> program. Of course, rather than joining them in counselling retreat,
> Roberts thinks a Corbyn government would necessarily need to move beyond
> Keynesianism to wider nationalization of all of the major banks and
> corporations - the original program of the Labour Party and other social
> democratic parties before their neoliberal turn.
>
> As most recently in Greece, a British Left-wing government would
> immediately be confronted with retreating from or advancing its program.
> The outcome would depend not only the quality of the Corbyn leadership but,
> more decisively, on the further development of the consciousness and
> militancy of the British working class and its international allies if and
> as their conditions continue to deteriorate.
>
>
> https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/corbynomics-extreme-or-moderate/
>
>
>
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