Re: (OPE-L) Re: taxation and public finance in Marxian literature

[Ernesto Screpanti <screpanti@xxxxxxxx>]

At 06.40 13/05/2004 -0400, you wrote:
> Hi
> Ernesto.
>  
> >  In the Manifesto  Marx
> and Engels also proposed a fiscal 
> > policy based on  "a heavy progressive or graduated income
> tax". 
> > Both measures are envisaged as part of a process of building of
> > a communist society. 
>  
> Right.  But, so long as capitalist relations of
> production prevail, what
> is the impact of a heavily progressive income tax on the
> accumulation
> of capital?

I do not precisely know. But I do not think it would dramatically impair
it.


> > It is interesting to note that
> Engels interpreted progressive taxation 
> > as embodying the principle "from each according to his
> ability". 
> > On the other hand, the public provision of goods at low or zero
> > price allocates resources on the ground of the principle "to
> each 
> > according to his needs".
>  
> Perhaps M and/or E miscalculated about _which_ demands can
> only
> be realized after a workers' revolution?  In the
> _Communist Manifesto_, 
> free public education for children was also a policy change
> proposed
> after the insurrection, yet (despite recent neo-con efforts
> at privatization
> of the school system, e.g. in India) this demand was already
> realized 
> in most capitalist social formations long ago. 

Yes. My opinion is that it was realized as a consequence of the workers
struggles, "the real movement that abolishes the present state of
things"

>  
> In solidarity, 

Ernesto