FEATURE: Changing the world
David Dewhurst, Occupy London
Occupy London is part of the global social movement that has brought together concerned citizens from across the world against this injustice and to fight for a sustainable economy that puts people and the environment we live in before corporate profits. David is writing in a personal capacity.
Our current economic problems are rooted in the increasing skew of wealth and income to the diminishing minority at the top.
This was done through the corrupt growth of tax havens( or secrecy legislatures), as well as legalized and mindless deregulation of financial controls. The effective world-wide capture of national executives by the finance sector is both through money and corrupt ideology.
The ethos of indulgence of; tax evasion, immoral avoidance and legally lowered tax responsibilities on the rich, has pretended to be in the interests of us all but it has created if not a tax strike, certainly a radical‘ go slow’ among the richest. This has forced up borrowing by the rest, both governments and individuals, to a level that imperils even the assets at the top.
As wealth accumulates at the extreme it has throttled effective demand for real goods and services elsewhere and created often illusory paper assets which bubble and collapse injuring almost everyone. Previously crises could be fixed within nations; today it is impossible without international collaboration. Otherwise multinationals and other significant capital controllers debauch national sovereignty and bargain down national populations one by one.
Long term we need to build with an intelligent ethos from the bottom up. In the short term, here are 30 ideas which the international community should demand of legislatures:
Taxation
1) End of all secrecy legislatures / tax havens 2) An end to tax evasion and secret bank accounts 3) Broad international progressive tax harmonization 4) An equal international financial transactions tax 5) Implementation of a Land Value Tax 6) Wealth tax( They have it in Zurich!) revolutionise. it 43