‘Why the Coalition, conservatives and big business are terrified by Emma Alberici‘, Independent Australia, 2 March 2018 update
A further contribution to the debate on ABC economics correspondent Emma Alberici’s analysis of Australia’s corporate tax system. (Our post stresses the disjunction between, on the one hand, the outcomes delivered by our current system and, on the other, the Australian egalitarian ethos.)
This is not simply a continuation of the feud between conservatives and the ABC. Nor is it an economic dispute about the impact of the proposed tax cuts on investment, employment or revenues. This is a dispute that is really about politics and power; the rolling back of social democracy and the liberation of private wealth from the constraints of public democracy …
[For those who attacked Alberici’s analysis] the intention is to deny the credibility of critics (especially within the ABC) and their right to challenge orthodox economics, and the growing political and social power of business …
For these ideologues, the corporate tax issue is not simply one of economic efficiency, but is central to an important reordering of power within society — one which rejects the right of democratic governments to force wealthy individuals to hand over large portions of their wealth to pay for public goods, like welfare, health and education …
Where opponents [of the current system] are denied any legitimacy … criticism of the behaviour and policies of banks and business will only ever be “business bashing” and concerns about deepening concentrations of wealth will never be anything but the “politics of envy”.
