Ecuador Puts Piketty Into Practice

[marmar]

Ecuador Puts Piketty Into Practice

Saturday, 20 June 2015 00:00
By Josh Hoxie, Foreign Policy in Focus | News Analysis


Few Americans could likely find Ecuador on a map or pick its president, Rafael Correa, out of a lineup. However, Correa recently announced an economic plan that should make us pay closer attention to this small South American nation.

Citing the corrosive impact of excess inherited wealth on democracy, Correa proposed a steeply progressive tax on large inheritances. It’s like an estate tax, but with a twist: Revenue from the plan would be issued as dividends directly to workers, rather than going to the government.

The number of families paying the tax would be quite low, since just 3 in every 100,000 Ecuadorians receive an inheritance worth more than $50,000. On that $50,000 they’d pay just $350 in taxes, or 0.7 percent. The beneficiaries, on the other hand, include the entire population.

The plan speaks to a central problem of modern economies. As Thomas Piketty illustrated in his blockbuster Capital in the Twenty-First Century, wealth concentrates at the top when left to its own devices. When that happens, the only effective counterweight is a tax. ......................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31423-ecuador-puts-piketty-into-practice

[tech3149]

1. In some ways I feel the revolution is nearer than ever

There was a point in my childhood that I felt a level of pride that humanity could truly do great things and overcome any adversity.
That was killed both literally and figuratively in the 60's at the same time I saw so much potential. The powers that control the world were able to stifle any resistance through less sophisticated means back then but now they have to be much more subtle and sophisticated and they are up to the challenge and have all the resources they need.
The revolution will start with those who have been oppressed and exploited the most.
The greatest hope I have for "developed" nations is that our expectations are finally perceived as a sales pitch for exploitation through wage and debt slavery.