Taxes and surplus value

In Ireland there is regular and frequent reference to the budget surplus 
that the
bourgeois state has experienced. The surplus is being presented as 
something that the
bourgeois state can almost be proud of. It is presented in the bourgeois 
media as an
indication of the prosperity of Irish society. In connection with this the 
media is
forever inculcating  the view that "the country" is awash with money. Then 
when the
government introduces measures that reduce income tax as a means of cutting 
into the
budget surplus its policy is viewed as a act of generosity on the part of 
the government.

The entire debate over the budget surplus and the economic condition of 
Ireland is
conducted within the superficial matrix outlined above. The entire debate  
misrepresents
the real character and significance of the current situation.

The budget surplus is not an achievement of the state. It merely means that 
that the state
is, if anything, over-taxing the economy. It merely means that the state is 
deducting too
much surplus value from the bourgeoisie. It is an indication of the 
inability of the state
and indeed its bourgeoisie to rationally plan under capitalism since these 
massive
surpluses were not intended.

Given the vastness of this unexpected surplus value in the form of state 
revenue there is
no question but that the state must release much of this revenue back to 
the source from
which it came --the valorisation process. For ideological and pragmatic 
political reasons
the government seeks to present any such return of surplus value as an act 
of caring
concern on the part of the government. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. All that
the surplus means is that the state has been over-taxing the capitalist 
economy and
consequently hindering the accelerated accumulation of capital within that 
economy. In
short the budget surplus is both an expression of the limited nature of the 
state's social
spending and the degree to which it is hindering rather than enhancing the 
development of
the capitalist economy.

When it returns much of this surplus it presents it as a return of surplus 
to the working
class. It suggests that the return of this surplus in the form of 
reductions in income tax
means increased living standards for the working class. What it does not 
explain is that
under the corporatism that obtains in Ireland any reduction in income tax 
to the working
class means a corresponding smaller increase in gross wages or salaries to 
the working
class. The result is that the net gain to the working class in lower income 
tax is
neutralised by the correspondingly diminished increase in gross wages going 
to the the
working class. The upshot is that the reduced income tax is merely a 
disguised way in
which surplus value is returned to the bourgeoisie.

Among the most oppressive aspect of the entire strategy for fooling the 
working class in
this way and presenting the increasing exploitation of the working class as 
liberation is
that in Ireland there no voice, let alone organisation, that highlights 
this fact. The
radical left in Ireland is totally incapable of providing such an 
ideological opposition.
Indeed, if anything, the left in Ireland is so bigoted that the kind of 
opinion offered
here would be vehemently suppressed by them. However on the internet is at 
present much
harder to engage in such censorship --although there have been, and are, 
conspicuous
attempts to achieve this on some mailing lists.


Warm regards
George Pennefather

Be free to check out our Communist Think-Tank web site at
http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/