A new year's resolution

I picked up a copy of Thomas Piketty’s book ‘Time for Socialism’ last month, and yes, it’s the sort of book the leader of a ‘left of centre’ political party ought to read. Piketty is no shouty ideologue from the ‘hard left’ but a thoughtful economist with a love of credible statistical evidence to substantiate the remedies he conceives are necessary to improve society—with a big emphasis on tackling inequality, which disease he thinks tears at the roots of progress on so many levels. He blows apart myths. Here’s an example:
 
‘Between 1930 and 1980, the [tax] rate applied on the highest incomes was on average 81% in the United States, and the rate applied to the highest inherited estates was 74% . . . [Then following the polices of wealth tax reduction employed by Reagan, et al] ‘Between 1980 and 2020 the rise in per capita income was halved in comparison with the period 1930-1980. What little growth there was, has been swept up by the richest, the consequence being a complete stagnation in income for the poorest 50%’ (p.228)
 
In other words, higher taxes on the wealthy do not lead to reductions in growth—the standard measure of economic success. In France, Piketty shows that there has been no wealth migration from the country when it had wealth taxes (which Macron has abolished) - quite the contrary in fact. But we’re fed as truth the myth that rich people will export their wealth if they are ‘taxed till their pips squeak.’ The fact that many wealthy people (and corporations) already do do that, using tax havens, tells us where the real reforms are needed. And how blind our politicians are—or should I say how subservient they are—to the wealthy. Over to you, Keir . . . (and stop listening to Mandelson, for whom inequality could be brushed to one side so long as the filthy rich paid their taxes. Which often they don’t.)