Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“ Real wealth concentration is about the ownership of productive capital, the means of production and finance. It's big capital (finance and business) that controls the investment, employment and financial decisions of the world.    A dominant core of 147 firms through interlocking stakes in others together control 40% of the wealth in the global network according to the Swiss Institute of Technology.   A total of 737 companies control 80% of it all.   This is the inequality that matters for the functioning of capitalism – the concentrated power of capital. And because inequality of wealth stems from the concentration of the means of production and finance in the hands of a few; and because that ownership structure remains untouched, any increased taxes on wealth will fall short of irreversibly changing the distribution of wealth and income in modern societies.”

Philanthropy, he insists, is not an adequate counterbalance to inequality, and can act as a “fig leaf”. “I also don’t believe in this idea that the rich will save us,” he says. “I think we need to reclaim our democracy; arguably we live in a plutocracy”. Like philanthropy, taxation, too, is another fig leaf to foster the idea that private ownership is sacred and capitalists have accumulated wealth legitimately, and that the rich, or at least some of them, think of the nation and give their share. The reclusive rich

Tax justice now!

Summary: An argument for better taxation to reduce inequality. A couple of arguments refuting myths. However, there is no word about exploitation, the real source of inequality, which is also, paradoxically, the source of human advance. The argument that huge inequality is a consequence of bad taxation is a myth that the author reiterates. Inequality already takes place and is reproduced through property ownership and during the relations of production, i.e. before taxation itself. Consent and acquiescence play a role in accepting inequality. Agreed. And that is the power of ideology to legitimate inequality and gloss over exploitation. "The idea that rising inequality is inevitable begins to look like a convenient myth, one that allows us to avoid thinking about another possibility: that through our electoral choices and decisions in daily life we have supported rising inequality, or at least acquiesced in it. Admittedly, that assumes we know about it. Surveys in the UK an...

Another indictment of the "International Criminal Fund" “We are not poor but were made poor, this is your policy, oh dollar” ( Mish faqir lakin ifqar, hatha nahjak ya dular ). This understanding of corruption is in stark contrast to notions of corruption which depict the main problem of postcolonial states in the global South as one of corrupt individuals, rather than global economic structures that keep elites, leaders and policies which harm their populations. Framed this way, the problem is mismanagement rather than (deliberate) structures that benefit the elite at the expense of the majority." Do you know who governs us? The damned Monetray Fund Essential reading: Debt, IMF, and the World Bank  by Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet, 2010

"High inequality could threaten global capitalism," says an international criminal institution that played a significant role, at least in the last forty years, in creating that inequality and plunder. An interview with Michael Roberts World's witnessing a new Gilded Age My advice: the representatives of the capitalist system should do something about the new Robber Barons to save their criminal system so that criminal action go on as usual, but more legal and more accepted by the general public.

" Au fond, Piketty est un économiste bien plus conventionnel qu’il ne le croit. Son élément naturel, ce sont les statistiques relatives aux niveaux de revenus, les projets de taxation, les commissions chargées d’examiner ces questions. Ses recommandations pour réduire les inégalités se résument à des politiques fiscales imposées d’en haut. Il se montre parfaitement indifférent aux mouvements sociaux qui, par le passé, ont pu remettre en cause les inégalités et pourraient à nouveau jouer un tel rôle. Il semble même plus préoccupé par l’échec de l’Etat à atténuer les inégalités que par les inégalités proprement dites. Et, bien qu’il convoque souvent, à bon escient, des romanciers du XIXe siècle comme Honoré de Balzac et Jane Austen, sa définition du capital reste trop économique et réductrice. Il ne tient aucun compte du capital social, des ressources culturelles et du savoir-faire accumulés dont bénéficient les plus aisés et qui facilitent la réussite de leur progéniture. Un capit...