Cooking the Books 1 – Corbyn’s crumbs of comfort
‘We will only fix the crises in our society with a mass redistribution of wealth and power. That means taxing the very richest in our society’, tweeted Corbyn on 24 July announcing the launch of a new political party.
That sounds radical but a ‘mass’ redistribution of wealth is not the same as a ‘massive’ redistribution, only a redistribution to some mass of people. Interpreted literally, it would mean that some of the wealth of the very richest is to be taken from them through taxation and distributed amongst a large number of individuals. Let us say from the top 1 percent to those in the bottom 50 percent.
According to the Office for National Statistics, ‘In the April 2020 to March 2022 period, the wealthiest 1% of households held 10% of all household wealth in Great Britain, which was the same as the proportion held by the least wealthy 50% of households combined’.
The wealth tax proposed by former Labour leader Neil (now Lord) Kinnock and others of 2 percent of wealth holdings of over £10 million has been estimated to raise £24 billion a year. The total number of households in the UK is about 28 million, so 50 percent is 14 million. £24 billion divided by 14 million is about £1,714 (£33 a week) per household. No doubt a welcome amount for the families concerned but hardly enough to bring about any permanent improvement in their condition. Even if it is used to improve services rather than as a cash payment, £24 billion divided amongst 14 million is not going to be able to provide much of an improvement.
But perhaps the ‘mass’ that is to benefit from this redistribution is not to be as large as that. In an article in the Guardian (30 July) introducing the new party, Corbyn wrote that one of its policies would be to make ‘the wealthiest in society pay a bit more in tax to ensure that everyone should live in dignity’. About 20 percent of the population are considered to live in poverty. If the £24 billion were to be divided only amongst the bottom 20 percent, some 5.6 million, the amount per household would be £4,286, or an extra £82.42 a week. This would certainly help but whether it would be enough to allow them to live in dignity is another matter.
The original tweet went on to say the ‘mass redistribution of wealth and power’ intended to ‘fix the crises in our society’ would mean ‘bring[ing] energy, water, rail and mail into public ownership’. But what about the rest of production? Seemingly that is to rest in private capitalist hands, so the ‘our society’ the new party is talking about is present-day capitalist society of minority class ownership and production for profit.
Creating an egalitarian society through a redistribution of wealth within capitalism is a pipe-dream as it goes against the logic of the system. Capitalism is based on a minority owning the means of wealth production and on these being used to generate profits that are accumulated as more wealth for the owners. Inequality of wealth ownership and the tendency for the wealthy to get wealthier are built into the system.
Attempting to counter this will mean that the new party will end up being a mere party of protest, spending its time criticising the government for not doing what it ‘demands’ and ‘resisting’ when the workings of the capitalist economy force the government to make things worse.