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Ah, where do I begin? Southernplaces7, your argument reads like the greatest hits of neoliberal thought circa 1980. Sure, governments can be wasteful—cue the obligatory mention of military overspending and bureaucratic bloat—but that doesn’t negate the crux of my point: tax evasion and profit offshoring are significant drags on economic equality. You suggest that hidden capital is always put to good use. But let’s be real, the majority of it ends up in the average urban Joe's much beloved real estate speculation, yachts, and financial instruments that do little to spur genuine economic growth or innovation. It’s like hiding your vegetables under the mashed potatoes and claiming you’ve eaten them. It’s still there, but it’s not nourishing anyone.
Or, while it's lovely to think that the hidden wealth of the ultra-rich is busily working away like Santa's elves to create a better future, the reality is starkly different. And about that Jetsons future: it’s not about just having the funds. It’s about allocating them efficiently and equitably. When capital returns far outstrip labor returns because the wealthy can hide their money and avoid taxes, we create an unbalanced system where innovation and societal progress are stunted. It’s not just about waste, it’s about skewed incentives. Effective tax policy isn’t about bleeding the rich dry; it’s about ensuring that those who benefit the most from the system contribute proportionately to its upkeep and progress.
And governments aren’t perfect, but they’re the only game in town for large-scale investments in public goods—think infrastructure, education, healthcare, and yes, tech innovation and green transition. So, before we go all in on the "government waste" narrative, let’s remember that the (current) alternative is a plutocracy where the rich get richer and the rest of us get crumbs. No Jetsons future in that, rather much more like the Flintstones. |
On the other hand using the word "neoliberal" reveals little more than a cheap, all too human love of simplistic, idiotic ideological labels with little substance. Go ahead and define whatever the hell a neoliberal is. Name a few examples and exactly how their administrations were in any marked way different from any other modern western state. Here's a hint of the silliness inherent in that, via example: Under the Bush years, the fundamental structure of government and its obligatory spending was little different from how it was under any number of leaders previous to or following that time. Let's look beyond cheap labels and at the actual structure of how governments, markets, taxes and social systems work.
As for my main point: It's simply this (and related to what I just mentioned above) in the modern world, speaking particularly in the context of the developed countries, government budgets and tax receipts from economic activity are so enormous as they stand that losses from tax evasion are far more of a boogeyman than a reality as a meaningful hindrance to resources. The average budget of the average western developed country has so many avenues for allocating funds that using lost tax revenue from evasion as an excuse for why it doesn't do so for a better future is absurd.
The numbers simply don't back it up. To take the U.S. as an example, it's estimated that losses due to illegal tax dodging were something over 600 billion in 2021. Those are losses to both state and federal tax revenues. In the same year, the federal budget alone was over 6.8 trillion. If you add in state budgets, the number gets an extra 3.8 trillion added to it. That makes the total over 10 trillion in government spending. 680 billion is a lot, no doubt, but as an excuse for why government "doesn't have enough money" for better things, it's a pallid excuse.