Re: <nettime> EU wealth tax petition

[Sean Cubitt via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Of course creating some kind of road towards equality is important; and any action that gets more attention on that goal has to be good. But keep a few things in mind.

AfD are not alone among right-wing groups in promoting plebiscites and referenda as an alternative to parliamentary debates. A strict binary choice, yes or no, without discussion, gets rid of any nuance, any trade-off, any chance of moderating or deflecting or re-orienting choices:  

The experience of the Australian referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament is illuminating. A binary choice - support or not. In August 2022, the Yes campaign was polling over 65% approval. By he time of the vote, that had slumped to the low 40s, and the No campaign took around 58%. Massive mobilisation of advertising is the main culprit.

Now check out the Fortune Global 500 (https://fortune.com/ranking/global500/2023/). 6 of the top 10 are in the fossil fuel industry. Wallmart are at 1, Amazon at 4: benchmark-setters in the retail trade. Number 10, United Health, is the first of dozens of insurance and venture capital firms. I looked up United - there lobbying budget is larger than the GDP of many countries, which may explain why the US health system is so immune to legislation. 

If there’s a decent chance that a poll might change anything, the coffers will open. On yesterday’’s figures,  "The richest 1 percent have amassed $42 trillion in new wealth over the past decade, nearly 34 times more than the entire bottom 50 percent of the world’s population”  (https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/top-1-percent-bags-over-40-trillion-new-wealth-during-past-decade-taxes-rich-reach).  They are not going to keep funding elections if they think they might get one that makes them pay tax - any tax. Besides, they can always move to the caymans, or outer space. 

Democratic elections, as people,e have been saying here for a week or more, are no substitute for organisation and communication (and I’d add open debate) - for which we need to build places like Nettime into vast public commons. But they are still endlessly better than binary polling

Seán


> On 26 Jul 2024, at 8:00 PM, nettime-l-request@lists.nettime.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Re: EU wealth tax petition (Brian Holmes)
>   2. Re: EU wealth tax petition (mp)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2024 16:57:05 -0500
> From: Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>
> To: "<nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> 	collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets"
> 	<nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>
> Subject: Re: <nettime> EU wealth tax petition
> Message-ID:
> 	<CANuiTgzpf46STrRwG6tFKLr4G-jt2M4OyC9gtp8L4F-m59e3Cg@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
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> On Mon, Jul 22, 2024 at 3:59?AM franz schaefer via nettime-l <
> nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> i signed it already.  but one thing that bothers me a bit is that all the
>> left wing initiatives still focus so much on the "redistribution" while
>> makeing very little afford to educate people about the madness of the
>> capitalist production.
>> 
>> as a rough guestimate: about 50% of jobs today are bullshit jobs. wasted
>> work in the burocracy of corporate structures but even more: creating
>> artifical scarcity and jobs that (just alone by their ecologic
>> footprint) create more harm then good. products with planed obsolescence.
>> advertising which has just one product: to trick us into buying things we
>> did not know we even need, etc...etc..
>> 
> 
> Hear hear! At least half of what capitalism now distributes is not goods,
> but harms.
> The point of taxing the rich is to get rid of the billionaire class, not to
> become part of it...
> 
> best, Brian
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2024 10:23:29 +0200
> From: mp <mp@aktivix.org>
> To: nettime-l@lists.nettime.org
> Subject: Re: <nettime> EU wealth tax petition
> Message-ID: <99bb9080-6f9a-4341-b170-fee37d4f0712@aktivix.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/25/24 23:57, Brian Holmes via nettime-l wrote:
>> On Mon, Jul 22, 2024 at 3:59?AM franz schaefer via nettime-l <
>> nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> i signed it already.  but one thing that bothers me a bit is that all the
>>> left wing initiatives still focus so much on the "redistribution" while
>>> makeing very little afford to educate people about the madness of the
>>> capitalist production.
>>> 
>>> as a rough guestimate: about 50% of jobs today are bullshit jobs. wasted
>>> work in the burocracy of corporate structures but even more: creating
>>> artifical scarcity and jobs that (just alone by their ecologic
>>> footprint) create more harm then good. products with planed obsolescence.
>>> advertising which has just one product: to trick us into buying things we
>>> did not know we even need, etc...etc..
>>> 
>> 
>> Hear hear! At least half of what capitalism now distributes is not goods,
>> but harms.
>> The point of taxing the rich is to get rid of the billionaire class, not to
>> become part of it...
>> 
> 
> I'd say the point is to use the enormous tax potential to pay key 
> workers as much as, say, Associate Professors.
> 
> 
> 
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> End of nettime-l Digest, Vol 13, Issue 17
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