Martin Farrer - Historian berates billionaires at Davos over tax avoidance
A discussion panel at
the Davos World
Economic Forum has become a sensation after a Dutch historian took billionaires
to task for not paying taxes. In a video shared tens
of thousands of times, Rutger
Bregman, author of the book Utopia for Realists, bemoans the failure of
attendees at the recent gathering in Switzerland to address the key issue in
the battle for greater equality: the failure of rich people to pay their fair
share of taxes.
Noting that 1,500
people had travelled to Davos by private jet to hear David Attenborough talk
about climate change, he said he was bewildered that no one was talking about
raising taxes on the rich.
“I hear people talking
the language of participation, justice, equality and transparency but almost no
one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right? And of the rich just not
paying their fair share,”
“It feels like I’m at
a firefighters conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water.” Industry had to “stop
talking about philanthropy and start talking about taxes”, he said, and cited
the high tax regime of 1950s America as an example to disprove arguments by
businesspeople at Davos such as Michael Dell that economies with high personal
taxation could not succeed. “That’s it,” he says. “Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the
rest is bullshit in my opinion.”
A member of the
audience, former Yahoo chief financial officer Ken Goldman, challenged his
comments and said it was a “one-sided panel”. He argued the fiscal settings
across the global economy had been successful and had created record
employment. But another panel
member, Winnie Byanyima, an Oxfam executive director, took up the fight and
said high employment was not a good thing in itself because many people found
themselves in exploitative work. She cited the example of poultry workers in
the US who had to wear nappies (diapers) because they were not allowed toilet
breaks.
“That’s not a
dignified job,” she said. “those are the jobs we’ve been told about, that
globalisation is bringing jobs. The quality of the jobs matter. In many
countries workers no longer have a voice.
Addressing Goldman,
she said: “You’re counting the wrong things. You’re not counting dignity of
people. You’re counting exploited people.” Billions of dollars
were leaked by tax avoidance every year which should instead be going to
alleviate poverty in the developing world, she added. After the panel
Bregman tweeted
a link to a opinion piece he wrote for the Guardian in 2017, saying
“most wealth is not created at the top, but merely devoured there”
