Paul Mattick Jr. in ‘Business
Paul Mattick Jr. in 'Business as Usual' raises the issue of how far the state, despite professed neoliberalism, makes no progress in withdrawing from its role in the economy. He describes neatly the paradoxical between state and private business, noting that despite the professed desire for a small state: "the share of GDP appropriated by the state has increased… Even while more powers are abandoned by the state to profit-orientated corporations, government funds … remain essential to the operation of the economic mechanism. … as it [the state] becomes increasingly both a form of enterprise for the enrichment of its practitioners and one devoted to the servicing of dominant economic interests, it remains true that those funds represent a cost to the capitalist economy of which they have become a fundamental part."(p.89-90) Mattick Jr. supports the SPGB view of taxation as utimately a burden on profits: "The underlying problem is that government-financed production does not produce a profit… Tax money appears to be paid by everyone. But …only business actually pays taxes. … So when the government buys goods or services from a corporation … it is just giving a portion of its cut of profits back to business, collecting from all and giving it to some."(p.81)