Thursday, July 31, 2014

Unmasked

From:  Monbiot



The justifications for extreme inequality have collapsed. But only the Green Party is prepared to take the obvious step

When inequality reaches extreme and destructive levels, most governments seek not to confront it but to accommodate it. Wherever wealth is absurdly concentrated, new laws arise to protect it.

In Britain, for example, successive governments have privatised any public asset which excites corporate greed. They have cut taxes on capital and high incomes. They have legalised new forms of tax avoidance(1). 

They have delivered exotic gifts like subsidised shotgun licences and the doubling of state support for grouse moors(2). And they have dug a legal moat around the charmed circle, criminalising, for example, the squatting of empty buildings(3) and most forms of peaceful protest(4). However grotesque inequality becomes, however closely the accumulation of inordinate wealth resembles legalised theft, political norms shift to defend it.  MORE

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