If you hope to win a wealth tax, you need a powerful force advocating to abolish billionaires. To win minimalist measures to taper extreme inequality requires building a socialist movement demanding the expropriation of capitalists’ socially derived wealth.
In a positive development, there’s been significant discussion about adopting a wealth tax in Quebec over the past week. At its annual congress last weekend, Québec Solidaire (QS) adopted a motion calling for an annual capital tax of one per cent on individuals holding net assets of $25 million with the tax rate rising to two per cent for fortunes exceeding $100 million. QS says its plan would generate $5 billion annually for social programs.
The proposal unleashed a significant debate. A highly mediatized Quebec capitalist, François Lambert, denounced QS. He posted, “To all the Québec solidaire supporters out there… shut up! If you’ve never started a business, shut up. If you think entrepreneurs spend their Friday nights drinking champagne while ‘the people suffer,’ shut up.”
QS spokesperson Ruba Ghazal responded saying she wouldn’t “remain silent”. Ghazal said, “I have a hard time accepting that some people are sleeping on the streets while others are abusing the system. It’s really just pocket money we’re taking from multimillionaires with fortunes of $25 million and more.”
Similar to the QS proposal, Avi Lewis campaigned to lead the NDP on a platform pushing a wealth tax. Lewis said, “We will introduce a wealth tax of 1% on net wealth above $10 million, 2% above $50 million and 3% above $100 million.Such a tax would impact only a small number of Canadians, but could generate a much-needed $40 billion a year, and $500 billion over ten years. A wealth tax proposal is often framed as an unachievable policy because of fear of rich people leaving Canada entirely. But, the evidence is clear: this is a self-serving myth. People of means have deep ties to place, community, and their networks. A wealth tax is a key revenue measure to fund essential services without shrinking the tax base. And this is a winning idea. 88% of Canadians across party lines want to see a wealth tax applied.”
In their pitches for a wealth tax, both Lewis and QS raise historic levels of inequality. Canada’s 86 billionaire families control more wealth than the country’s 6.2 million least wealthy families. One single Canadian, Changpeng Zhao, has $150 billion. It’s grotesque.
Inequality of this degree isn’t simply immoral, it subverts democracy. With a small number having such massive means to finance media, think tanks, universities, cultural institutions and politicians, democracy is but a mirage. Oligarchy is reality.
Reclaiming some of their socially derived wealth through a small tax on capital is a sensible redistributive, pro-democracy measure. But it’s far from sufficient. Billionaires shouldn’t exist. Nor should one hundred millionaires or even ten millionaires.
“Abolish Billionaires through Expropriation Without Compensation”, is the concluding theme of the Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed: Onwards to a Socialist Future platform. We need economic and political mechanisms that make extreme inequality impossible.
It should be viewed as illegitimate for individuals to control the social labour of hundreds or thousands of individuals. The notion that institutions of social labour can be “owned” by wealthy capitalists should be discredited in a similar way to as slavery is viewed as anti-human. Wherever there’s significant social labour, there should be community ownership and workplace democracy. Ending the minority rule of capitalism and replacing it with economic democracy should be our goal.
In ten days activists, organizers, socialists and anti-imperialists from across the country will gather in Toronto and online for the Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed conference. Speakers include Kshama Sawant, Dimitri Lascaris, Clayton Thomas-Müller, Tamara Lorincz and others. The May 24 event will be a day of political discussion, strategy and organizing focused on building a fighting socialist movement equal to the crises we face. You can register for the conference at capitalismcantbefixed.ca
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