Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

‘Progressive taxation fairer than private participation’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Progressive taxation is an inherently fairer method to raise capital for administering public goods than bringing in private players, Milton Fisk, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Indiana University, U.S., has said.

He was delivering a talk on ‘Globalisation, justice and labour’ at the Department of Political Science, University of Kerala, here, on Friday. Using the private sector to administer public services is the way of neo-liberalism. The private sector, though, is not accountable to the public; the public does not get to examine the balance sheets of these private enterprises. At the same time, the lack of expertise of public enterprises in administering public goods is primarily because these enterprises are under-funded, Dr. Fisk said.

If public enterprises are not properly funded, they will not attract the experts needed to administer public programmes. The private sector raises capital for its functions by employing cheap labour and from the market. The market does not distinguish between a buyer who is poor and another who is rich. It is because of this that progressive taxation becomes inherently fairer, he said.

The rush by big private enterprises to go where labour is the cheapest will lead to a social disaster. “There is only so low you can go and there are very few places left for business to go for cheap labour. Immigrants are being pitted today against native residents in many countries. Immigrant bashing will only serve the interests of the wealthy,” he said. The need of the hour is an ethics of solidarity among the world’s workers.

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‘Progressive taxation fairer than private participation’
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