Who Pays the Taxes ?

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 87, 15 November 1912, Page 2

Who Pays the Taxes ?

I Once in every three years, when the ! general elections occur, we find many | politicians, both professed Labor and | Socialist, as well as avowedly capitalist, | advocating, among other reforms 1 changes in the system of taxation, 'generally- in the direction of abolishing ! certain customs duties, and those tiscui

ahoiv. lioiu are proposed in the sup ixj-.cd mu\iv:-t (U the working-class.

Now. it is n matter of vital concern to tin- working-class that they should understand how taxation affects their interests, and it is the purpose of this article to prove that the working-class ar« not concerned with fiscal problems, bo.ca.uao they do not pay taxes at all.

It is, of course, obvious enough that the propertyless wage-worker is not affected by increases in the income-tax or in the land-tax, but it is not so readily perceived by a wage-worker that he does not pay customs duties either, and so wo see members of the working-class, led by promises of abolishing foodtasca, as the quacks call them, to vote representatives of the capitalist-class to Parliament and therefore into political power, which is the power necessary to maintain social control.

To show tihat customs duties do not concern the working-class, it is only necessary to point out that wage-workers are forced to sell themselves like- commodities on the labor market, and that being commodities their selling price averages about the cost of maintaining and reproducing themselves as efficient wealth-producers.

Plainly put, wages arc merely the amount of wealth needed to enable the wage-slave to keep himself in working trim and to rear a number of children to take his place in the slave-pens when he is prematurely worn-out.

Although tho average wage-slave may know from his own experience that he receives merely a subsistence, yet he does not realise that while he is forced to sell his energy in competition with other sellers of'tihe same com-modity—labor-power—he cannot possibly receive any more than the value of his commodity while he remains a competitor on the slave market, because uudor the capitalist system there must always be a redundancy of labor-power, as Marx has shown.

Supposing that the prices of commodities in New Zealand could be reduced on an average by 25 per cent., then the purchasing power of money- wages would rise by 33 1-3 per cent. For a time labor-power would sell above value —wages would be called "high."

Then from Australia and elsewhere would flow the tide of immigration, until such a plethora of slaves would be on the market as would cause money wages to fall, until perhaps, real wages were by competition forced lower than before the fall in prices of food, etc.

If anyone should object *that the money wages are "fixed" by arbitration award, it would be merely necessary to mention certain cases where actual wages are below the legal award rate as a result again of competition.

So under capitalism wages cannot rise permanently above the subsistence level, and yast as a legal minimum wage does not prevent a surplus of slaves fror;: forcing wages below that standard, so will the one big anti-political union mania not avail to prevent scabbery, for the simple reason that a man would rather take a shilling a day

Fiscalism and the Workers

By J.K. (Petone Marxian Club.)

less than see himself go home to the family with no shillings at all.

The question may now be put: "Well, if duties on necessaries of life are not n burden on the wage-worker, who does pay them!-"' The answer to this may be got, from a cursory glance at current political struggles between sections of the capitalist-class to-day. We see in New Zealand, for example, some capitalist organs advocating the abolishing of taxation on the poor workers' food, while other papers battle for high tariff to protect local indusry and, of course, the poor workers in local industry.

Those papers which cry for free trade are generally maintained by sections of industrial capitalists who stand to benefit by it, and these parasites are usually in favor of placing as much taxation on to the "idle landlord" as they can.

The "N.Z. Times," with its lackey writers, Mills and Withy, for example, wants land taxes because the shareholders of the "Times" have little capital sunk in land. The "Dominion," on the other hand, thinks that to raise all taxation from the land would be most unjust, because landed prorcrty predominates nmongst its shareholders. So we find that the question of who is to pay the cost of the .police, army, navy, courts, jails, State churches nnd other props of exploitation is fought over between sections of tho masterclass, and often with prefit bitterness, as was the case with Lloyd George's Budget.

In Britain there are special organisations for the purpose of propagating certain taxation schemes, and to each of these many thousands cf pounds arc contributed by the propertv-ownerf whose interests they respectively represent.

Now. althourrh wape-slnves contribute t>o innumerable fakes which pre no frood to them, the nvornpe capitalist understands his material interests fairly well, if he doesn't understand much else, and he dops not contribute' largely to political onranisitions which are of no use to him. And it is because he knows that taxation cannot be shoved on to the workers' shoulder? tbit the capitalist finances that taxation scheme which will benefit his materiel interests, and at the sam« time finances his flunkeys, like Mills and Withy, to gull the slaves into believing that taxes can be altered for their benefit, because t)-e political support of tho working-class voter is essential for the canitalist politician who wishes to exert the coercive force of the State in his master's interest. So when we hear Labor or Socialist sneakers tolling the slaves that '■br.y bear the cost of the Hew Zealand gift Dreadnought, we know that it is ignorance of the ABC of economics, or conscious fraud—it matters not which, for the result is the same—confusion. Taxes are paid from surplus value, which is tnken from the working-class at the point of production only; and taxes are required chiefly for the support of institutions necessary to the maintenance of this system of robbery, and the squabbles over the incidence of taxation are, from a class-conscious worker's point of view, merely squabbles between his plunderers over certain incidental expenses necessary to the plundering system —expenses which cut a piece out of the total swag and which one lot of labor-skinners tries to shove on to the other.