Taxes and the energy crunch
June 14th 2010 03:24
The Henry tax review is perhaps the most serious attempt to understand structural changes to the Oz political economy of recent times. Henry recognised some important home truths about the Oz economy and taxation. First, under conditions of globalisation taxation of mobile assets was increasingly difficult, and so taxation of immobile assets (like mineral ores) made sense. And secondly, the economy had to factor in the growing costs of environmental destruction.
Recognition of the unavoidable problem of environmental degradation, the material conditions within which the economy operates, is a signal event in the shift from purely ideological economics, based in notions of ideal conditions and behaviour, to an economics of the real world. Global warming, peak oil and pollution disasters make a nonsense of neo-liberal notions of investment and profit.
But the question is: what comes next? Will we see a new age of strong government and mixed economies, or a new grass roots economics that somehow factors in real costs at the most basic levels of supply and demand?
Recognition of the unavoidable problem of environmental degradation, the material conditions within which the economy operates, is a signal event in the shift from purely ideological economics, based in notions of ideal conditions and behaviour, to an economics of the real world. Global warming, peak oil and pollution disasters make a nonsense of neo-liberal notions of investment and profit.
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