Emeritus Prof Christopher MayAs the number of ultra-rich #Norwegians relocating (manly to Switzerland) grows, due to a (relatively small) increase in Norway's #wealthtax, it seems that they do not agree that #tax is the price we pay for civilisation... rather they see it as something to be avoided if possible (even if this means moving abroad); shameful!
GeofCoxGood article (https://northwestbylines.co.uk/politics/economy/is-taxation-a-necessary-evil-or-something-socially-positive/) - but for me it misses the most important argument for high levels of redistributive taxation: that capitalism has only ever worked reasonably well, at least for some of the world, in the period roughly 1945-75, with very high marginal income tax rates (70%+) and relatively high wealth taxes (eg. inheritance tax) - when the UK, most of Europe, many other countries, and even the US were using it to redistribute wealth and build their welfare states - and strictly regulating banking, international trade and capital flows, etc, etc.
In every other period in history capitalism outside strict regulation and high taxes has always led to social division, slavery and colonialism, crash, depression, war - as it probably is doing now, post 'neoliberalism'.
The depressing thought is that maybe it takes war and holocaust - and/or total climate/ecological breakdown - to get across this very simple lesson of history to those that think laissez-faire capitalism can actually work.
yes, absolutely right; I've said here a numbers of times that I take the position of supporting a regulatory model of capitalism; society needs to shape & direct the 'energy' of capitalism & that is best doen (indeed needs to be done) through regulatory forms with a clear wider social intent - we're on the same page!
I do agree. I was a 'serial entrepreneur' - I actually started my first business while still at school - and later discovered social enterprise, which has been my abiding passion, for the very obvious reason that it combines the excitement of enterprise with social responsibility.
Combining the creativity and (as you say) energy of free enterprise within a broadly socialist context is for me the golden zone to aim for. It's not 'capitalism' as we currently experience it - even in Western Europe - because it would curtail the accumulation of vast amounts of social wealth in private ownership.
Some years ago I did some research as part of my last book project on the solution in the best years of Yugoslavian market socialism, and for a while that looked quite good; bought down to some extent by external geo-political shifts unfortunately....
Liker you, have worked in my family business for ten years before moving into academia, I know business can do good things in the right context
John Robinson@ChrisMayLA6 @GeofCox Problem was, I think, Yugoslavia was a construct to keep together countries with different perspectives. Once Tito died, it fell apart. Notwithstanding, Yugoslavia did seem to manage to reconcile a centrally planned economy with individual freedoms, or am I missing something?
Yes, I think that's right; t required a strong, committed & respected leader to draw it together - when he departed there was a semi-vacuum & the system started to fall apart
I've spent a lot of time in Yugoslavia and the countries it broke into, and have a lot of friends there.
One thing many westerners don't realise is that if you ask most people in, say, Kosovo whether things were better under communism they will almost shout back 'Yes! Of course!' as if it was a stupid question.
Another friend - actually from Skopje - told me about her family's business there in the 'communist' period - again something a lot of people would be surprised to hear could exist at all. Tito's was in some ways an intrusive and oppressive regime - her family business was 'watched' (her word) by the state - but it was perfectly legal. And in other ways it was a very relaxed regime - nudity was for example common and accepted on island beaches on the Croatian coast.
But my favourite charcterisation of the before-and-after of communist Eastern Europe actually came in a Berlin taxi a year or so after the Wall came down. It was a time when sooner or later most conversations turned to this momentous change. A few minutes in, the taxi driver summed up his view: 'Yes', he said, 'Communism was shit. Capitalism - more shit.'
@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 Thank you for that Geof. Your description accords with my impression at the time, but only as a transient. Very different to, for example, my impression of Russia in 1989.
I worked in Russia too - though later than you - mainly in the late 90s and OOs. I was working for Oxfam there actually - well, I had my own company, but we had a number of contracts for research and development work with international aid charities (including USAid in Ukraine - so I know some deep background to the conflict there too!).
Most Eastern Europeans would not go back to communism, but I found far more nuanced views of it than we generally hear in 'the West'. In Russia there most definitely was nostalgia for some aspects of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev era (1950s-80s). "At least you knew your kids would have an education, and a job and a home" was something I often heard from people impoverished by the 90s disintegration.
I met an ethnic Russian selling secondhand clothes in a market somewhere in central Russia - she had been a lecturer in Estonia when it was part of the Soviet Union, but lost everything when it won independence, and Russians were no longer welcome in some places.
Or the small things. I remember us Westerners laughing about how there would be a 2 or 3-hour classical music concert on the single television channel - this was in Albania actually - but the Albanian himself had a subtly different view. Yes - like us he saw it as an unfortunate lack of choice, laughable by Western standards - but at the same time he went on to say 'But you know the next day everybody would be talking and laughing about it, because everybody had the same experience'.
@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 I wasn’t working in Russia but went over the period 1989-1993 on several expeditions, both in Russia and in Soviet Central Asia. All of these trips were in the company of Russian climbers or cavers. Some were famous in USSR, having climbed Everest, others were like me: run of the mill. We always had translators in our trips to Siberia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan et al. Fascinating time of change, which, as we all know has gone.
That doesn't sound 'run of the mill' at all ! - Just to keep up with those guys you must have been good.
I worked with an interpreter - a skill and pleasure in itself. We had many fascinating discussions about the cultural differences between the UK and Russia - one of her insights I remember was 'For Russians, compromise is a weakness - for the English it is a strength'. She also had to take me aside during a costing exercise - of all things - and say 'Geof, you must understand, in Russia power is PERSONAL.' I had been failing to understand that they couldn't precisely cost an export process until they knew which official would be dealing with it...
But despite everything I loved Russia and Russians. I even came to love those soviet era towns without centres - because they were not shaped by commerce - and you went down some anonymous steps under an ugly tower block to find a perfectly nice restaurant, put there for just that neighbourhood, which by the end of the evening was full of people eating, drinking and singing and dancing - and the eating would be punctuated every few minutes by somebody standing up and proposing a toast, which you had to do too - and the whole place would end up singing 'Kalinka'... and if you got drunk enough, and talked 'soul to soul' through the early hours, those people so stand-offish at first were suddenly friends.
@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 Your reference to Kalinka has brought it all back…..God those Russians could party! Also travelling by public bus from the far south of Uzbekistan to Dushanbe in Tajikistan alongside shepherds and farmers was surreal. A small window, but one that changed my life.
rob@ChrisMayLA6 can you point me to the evidence for Norwegians leaving Norway now? How much higher is it than in past times?
here's the report, suggesting it accelerated (albeit on very small numbers).
@ChrisMayLA6 thanks.