Haiti. Wading through a flooded street after the passing of Hurricane Matthew in Les Cayes, Haiti, Oct. 6, 2016 - the country's biggest disaster in years. Dieu Nalio Chery/Press Association. All rights reserved.It is literally impossible to shy away from global political theory. Pick-up your cell phone: where do the minerals that make-up its circuits come from? Are the revenues generated by the sale of such minerals used to benefit the people of the country in which the minerals were extracted?
Take a look at any piece of clothing in your wardrobe. Where was it made? What were the working conditions of the people making it? Were these conditions the reason for jobs being outsourced to that country, and income and employment lost in yours? Or vice versa? Switch on the news. There is a new scandal about corporations evading or avoiding taxes just about every month. Lists of rich individuals hiding their wealth in fiscal ‘havens’ are leaked almost as frequently.
Are these the inevitable implications of the free mobility of capital? If capital cannot be effectively taxed, because of tax competition between different countries or commitments to particular types of fiscal policy, does not labour pay the price?
