From: Philip Dunn (hyl0morph@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2008 - 20:33:33 EDT
Well, is the income tax etc paid by workers a deduction from surplus value. Do the capitalist ultimately have to cough up? On Sat, 2008-07-26 at 16:55 -0400, glevy@pratt.edu quoted the SPGB: > Taxes not a burden on the working class > Before the First World War, the Socialist Party had to spend much time > arguing that it followed from the labour theory of value that taxes > were not a burden on the working class but on the surplus value > already extracted from them by the capitalist class. > > When workers leave their workplace they have already been exploited > for everything over and above the value of their labour power; nothing > more can be extracted from them without reducing what they have to > live on below the value of their labour power. Workers do sometimes > physically pay taxes in the sense of handing over money from their > wages to the tax-collecting authority. But to the extent that this > becomes generalised it becomes part of the cost of production of > labour power, so that wages are going to have to increase to > compensate for it if the employers are to get the same quality labour > power as before. Workers may pay taxes, but taxation does not fall on > the working class as a class. In the end, it falls on surplus value. _______________________________________________ ope mailing list ope@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
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