I have to applaud Google boss Eric Schmidt who has defended
Google’s tax avoidance as simply “capitalism”
at work. Google shifted $10 billion to
Bermuda last year in order to avoid paying taxes on it.
“It’s called capitalism” Schmidt announces triumphantly, “We are proudly capitalistic, I’m not confused about this.”.
“I am very proud of
the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the
governments offered us to operate.”
The government of course is a government for and of capitalists designed to defend and advance the capitalist mode of production and the profits they accumulate from it. So it’s no surprise that Google is not the only multinational that avoids paying taxes. Rich individuals have also stashed away between $26 and $32 trillion in order to avoid taxes according to recent reports.
Schmidt’s comments are important in that it is one of those rare occasions that an important figure, a representative of the few thousand unelected people that control the political and economic life of the country, admits that massive wealth accumulation in fewer hands and what amounts to plunder is an integral part of the capitalist mode of production.
If we think about it, the capitalist class rarely if ever uses the word capitalism with reference to production. In fact they do their utmost to avoid mentioning that we live in a system of production and this system is known as capitalism at all. You can be a “capitalist” which they link to freedom and individual rights, but there is no capitalist class or capitalist system.
In their serious journals though, they are very conscious of
their role and discuss how best to manage the system they govern, the system
called capitalism.
For the corruption and excesses and thievery that occurs day
in day out, they apply terms like “crony
capitalism” or describe corruption as a simply a product of bad apples, evil individuals as opposed to an
integral part of the system’s functioning.
Corrupt individuals just stray from the “Rule of Law.”
So I thank Eric Schmidt for his honesty and sharing with us the true nature of the system of production in which we live.
So I thank Eric Schmidt for his honesty and sharing with us the true nature of the system of production in which we live.
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