Fiscal superstructure and the deepening of labour exploitation

Abstract

This article analyses the expropriation of workers’ incomes through public debt and taxation, in a fiscal system that is capable, more than of enabling a redistribution of surpluses, of deepening future labour exploitation. Based on recent Brazilian experience, the paper shows that the increase of both public debt and interest on that debt has led to increased taxation, whose burden is eventually levied on workers. Combined with a decrease in state spending on social wages, this has led to an increase in the aggregate rate of labour exploitation, revealing the exploitative character of the state fiscal superstructure.