Alternative Radio on 03/27/12

Richard Wolff: The Tax Code: Class Warfare (interview)

People dread taxes. The tax code is a labyrinth few citizens dare to enter save for the rich and powerful who hire lawyers and accountants to figure out ways to game the system. One corporation paid $26,000 a year to maintain a post office box in Bermuda as its legal HQs. That little trick saved them $40 million in corporate taxes. Not bad. Taxes on the wealthy used to be high. During the Eisenhower years in the 1950s, a fairly conservative period which saw tremendous economic growth, the tax rate for the haves was 91%. Today it’s a third of that and few actual pay that much. In true Orwellian fashion if you raise these issues you are accused of class warfare. There is class warfare all right. It’s been successfully waged by the affluent 1% against everybody else.

Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and currently a visiting professor at the New School in New York. “The New York Times” called him “America’s most prominent Marxist economist.” He is the author of numerous books including “Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do about It” and “Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism” with David Barsamian.