Tax the Rich. They Won't Leave New York
rollingstone.com
rollingstone.com
There seem to be three factors: Taxes on HQ, taxes on employees (always in the state where they work) and personal tax-dodging strategies. Go figure.
[0] https://californiaglobe.com/articles/oracle-moving-headquart...
These wankers are already optimising to pay as little tax as possible in their home state.
Hence, what does it matter if they threaten to leave or not?
They'll STILL be paying as little tax as possible.
They move there due to peer pressure, not because they like it hot & humid.
"Three-time gubernatorial candidate and billionaire B. Thomas Golisano is changing his home address to Florida to escape New York income taxes he says cost him nearly $14,000 a day."
Also, he's claiming he owed ~$5 million a year in taxes. Which is a lot, but he spent $93 million to run for governor, and basically flushed all that money down the loo. He apparently has spent hundreds of millions on various charitable projects. So clearly, the taxes are not really burdensome. He just doesn't think he should have to pay them.
How will higher taxes guarantee that they will be used appropriately?
How are the people guaranteed that officials will not be corrupted to divert that money into other projects?
How will the corruption, the largest problem in modern capitalist economies, be fixed by this?
No real answers, we just have to trust cause hes different?
Democracy is not trust, democracy is control. Don't be fooled.
Of course there is democracy and corruption is much worse in non-democratic countries.
Even the ones you're probably thinking about are capitalist, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Sudan, etc. All capitalists.
Capitalism creates authoritarianism through corruption as a grey market business practice.
But here's one stat I think illustrates how well it goes in practice: the Taliban in full-blown war caused less victims in Afghanistan than communists did in peacetime (in fact less than half. This, incidentally, is the actual reason the Taliban started fighting the west, not CIA support. Communism is STILL one of the western influences that they state they try to eradicate, and I doubt that part of their agenda is very controversial in Afghanistan. And, of course, western socialists never mention this, and especially don't discuss why or how socialism came to Afghanistan, and how it is the direct cause, not CIA support, of the current situation in Afghanistan and Iran)
And this is not an exception in communism. For instance: "peace" in the Soviet Union killed more people than WW2 did worldwide, including the holocaust, hell, include all conflicts the Soviets ever had and it's still true. Hell, include all conflicts in Europe of the entire 20th century and it was still more. Same in China.
So I feel all rational people can honestly say "even if you're right, capitalist authoritarianism is still better", and given that authoritarianism is almost a basic principle of socialism, certainly in practice, I don't understand where they're coming from in the first place.
The Afghan socialists were fighting monarchies, warlords(tribal land lords) and even shitty socialist leaders. - Figures of Soviet deaths are overblown to include non-births and even Nazi deaths, that is the state of anti-communist propaganda these days (right now). There is no denying that Soviets made mistakes, I am no apologist, but the western narrative is wrong on so many accounts that it discredits itself. A country trying to industrialize while undergoing a civil war and foreign attacks had a hard time organizing their agriculture under a drought. It is objectively a massive failure, but it is not inherent to socialist democracy.
What you fail to mention about the world wars is that both world wars were caused by capitalist tensions between nations. Both world wars can be fully attributed to capitalists enrichment and their contradictions between nation states. These are the gashes in humanity caused by capitalist colonialism. -
Let me tell you, Socialism is not something you vote for, its something you do. Democracy takes the efforts of society to make happen.
Neighborhood councils are a fundamental part of socialist theory. Ask yourself why you've never heard of it? Who produces the media content that gets promoted and published? Is it your neighbors with their social interests? Or is it massive capitalist publishers with their interests? The censorship in capitalist societies is about monopoly control and volume/amplification.
Capitalists are a fundamental threat to mass democracy.
> Capitalists are a fundamental threat to mass democracy.
I wouldn't be much of a liberal capitalist if I didn't tell you "YES it is! Or at least I 100% support you thinking that. You should fight those aspects and help out". That you're a communist that defends mass-executing people for trying to participate ... well it's not like you'll honestly discuss that aspect of socialism, in Afghanistan, Russia, Iran or elsewhere.
Conveniently you dont mention any of the mass executions caused by capitalism?
All the wars, all the covert operations, all the murderous and genocidal dictatorships, two world wars?
Knowing full well a sitting US president critiqued the military industrial complex as a capitalist threat.
Capital is even responsible for on going genocides.
You know well I do not advocate for mass murder.
I am advocating for mass democracy and the only way to acheive that permanently is through democratized production. I am advocating for progress and for an end of using base material needs for profits.
Such as? Oh wait, this is where you blame a communist massacre, like say the many ones committed in Cuba, on the pressure a capitalist state put on those poor, defenseless, communist warlords. Che Guevara!
It's like saying Iranian revolution was caused by capitalism (the oil companies), when of course the actual organizing, the starting of the revolution itself, and even a few massacres were executed by communists (yes, the most famous one was khomeini, however, that does not mean there were no others). Those poor massacring communists had no choice! They were forced to massacre by the pressure of the oil companies, who had a party in the desert! That just left them no choice at all. And then they just happened to bring a dictator to power, completely by accident! Victims!
(btw: in the Iranian case, if you kill to bring a dictator to power, that this dictator then proceeds to kill you does not make you innocent, or any less of a murderer, it just makes you a stupid dead murderer, who allied himself with a better murderer, and you dragged yourself into death and 10s of millions of people into 50 years of misery out of, let's face it, jealousy. THAT is what communism brought to Iran. Oh and Afghanistan was worse)
> You know well I do not advocate for mass murder.
Yes you do. That's what communism is: you replace money with a threat "do what the state plans for you to do or ..."
Since it is in almost everyone's best interest to NOT do what the state planned (because otherwise there would be no difference between capitalism and communism) you need to actually apply the threat. And any threat devolves into killing, after X steps, in some percentage of cases. X differs, the percentage differs, but not the end result. And because the threat needs to be universal in communism, the percentage is going to be large in practice.
> I am advocating for progress and for an end of using base material needs for profits.
No you are advocating for a planned economy and are refusing to think about any practical aspects of that. You are no different from an inquisitor or a taliban executioner who "protects" the people, but you can't see it because your cause is righteous.
If you dont know of any murderous actions on behalf of transnational capitalist entities and states I suggest you read any modern history.
From the invasions and massacres in my own country, to 2 world wars, to colonialism, to dissappearances all across sotuh america, to outright murder of democratically elected presidents.
Did you know drug cartels are capitalist entities as well? They extort, murder and traffick for profits extracted by labor.
I gave you countless examples that you discard. I gave you accurate narratives to world events you were weaponizing. And I've explained how socialism has nothing to do with "government" control and murder.
The facts of my support is that I think the only way to permanent mass democracy is democratized production. That's all. That's socialism.
To you capitalism is an abstract idea you conflate with freedom. To you socialism is murder and dictatorship.
I suggest you reanalyze your concepts.
Ah so you go for big sounding well-known problems, that kill 0.01% of the average socialist state then? Seen that argument too. And I'll show you the problem. They are serious problems ... but not compared to a small socialist problem, say Venezuela. The Venezuelan state is socialist, does what you suggest.
To stay directly in your argument: it turned out they work and support drug cartels. So your presenting of socialism as either the opposite or a solution to drug cartels is very disingenuous.
Venezuela is a progressive reformist state with many many capitalists. The reason why its considered a rogue state in your capitalist media is that it wont play ball with the american capitalist block/cartel.
Drugs could be made a legal industry in order to end the drug crisis. But drug cartels preserve regulation-less profits. Its literally billions they save by avoiding legality and taxation.
> Venezuela is a progressive reformist state ...
That's not how Chavez grabbed power and amassed billions. Not at all.
Chavez, the billionnaire drug-cartel supporter, hero of marxist communism. If it didn't destroy so many lives it'd be a sickening joke. Then again, people still see Arafat or Guevara as heroes of communism too, and compared to them Chavez is ... well, a lot smarter, but at least in Chavez's case I'd be reluctant to call him a mass murderer, whereas Arafat and Guevara definitely are mass murderers. Arafat was a billionnaire when he died too.
https://marxist.com/chavez-capitalism-transcended-socialism....