Tax the Rich Till Their Pips Squeak

Abstract

Taxing the rich will only be on the agenda, and using the extra money to improve public health, education, transport and address climate change also will only be on the agenda with a resurgence of class struggle by workers in Australia. An upsurge of class struggle will be about workers improving their living standards in all sorts of ways - increasing real wages, creating jobs, making workplaces safe. Taxing the rich and big business and using the money to benefit workers and the poor is part of that campaign to improve the living standards of workers by getting back some of the surplus value we create for the bosses. In doing that a more progressive tax system can be put back on the agenda. There is much to be done. The wealth is there. Tax the rich and business to pay for better public health and education, to address poverty and homelessness, to introduce a free universal health care and disability system. But a radical and progressive tax system - taxing the rich till their pips squeak - will produce a backlash from capital. Plan B would be to nationalise any companies involved in a capital strike or threatening one in response to increasing their tax burden. If so nationalise the mining companies and the banks. And included in Plan B would have to be price controls to stop companies just passing on any tax increases to workers in higher prices. Strike; nationalise; tax the rich. Fight back against the one sided class war the bosses have waged against workers and the poor over the past 3 decades for a more just and humane society for workers and the poor in Australia here and now.