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General Discussion Thread - Juche 113, Week 11 (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by [M] to c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
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Welcome again to everybody! Make your self at home, Pull a seat up next to Uncle Ho Chi Minh. For the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.

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[–] 12 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I've been thinking... According to modern monetary theory money is just an accounting tool for states with currency sovereignty. Since it posits that taxes give the currency legitimacy, and maybe appropriate personal taxes can adjust wealth based clout, aren't any talk of taxes basically a red herring?

Power and wealth come from capital and productive capacity, so by by-passing the talk of capital and productive capacity, the conversation is drawn to something that can never actually provide the changes anyone remotely left desires (tax the wealthy for example).

It makes it easy to ignore that the wealthy are wealthy because they own so much property (Elon Musk has shares which are property), and that the solution is to alleviate them of that burden directly, not through taxation of the property value.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I can't comment on MMT, but any reforms under a bourgeois state will at best provide some short-term gain for workers; people or organizations that focus on increasing taxes for the wealthy (or any other reforms) are still helping to maintain capitalism

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Not necessarily an MMT specific thing, but yes, the bourgeois focus on taxing labour (wage income) rather than property (capital or land). Interestingly enough, Adam Smith, one of the first liberal intellectuals, argued that land should be taxed rather than labour. The tax topic you illustrate is just one of many examples of how the class and socio-economic basis of things are completely obfuscated by liberal politicians and intellectuals.

    To MMT specifically, it only holds as a lacking description of the US dollar. Look at any other currency, ie any currency which is not the hegemonic global reserve currency, and you'll find that MMT doesn't hold up.

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