File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9712, message 71


From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-I: Budget Day. Source of Taxes
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 16:07:16 -0600 (CST)


Rebecca writes:

	However I tend to the view that certainly in the long run tax
	reductions do not necessarily mean an increase in real wages. I
	take the view that the price of labour power is essentially
	independent of income tax.  Instead the price of labour power or
	wages centres around the value of labour power whatever this may
	be. The character of the class struggle comes into play too.
	Depending on the relative strength of the working class the price
	of labour power at any given time. 

Years ago, reading *Wages, Price and Profit*, I inferred from it as
at least a speculative proposition that *all* taxes come from surplus
value, and that taxes levied on workers are merely a bookkeepign 
device: that is, the capitalist class pays *part* of its own taxes
(since only it controls the surplus value) by the judicial route
of first paying (some of) them to the workers, from whom it is then
transferred back to the State.

I never pursued the idea, partly because I lacked the technical know-how
to try to figure it out, partly because I didn't see what political
use could be made of it in either case. But in principle, Rebecca may
be correct here.

Carrol


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