Corbyn's tax policy exposes the contradictions at the heart of neoliberal discourse. Chatham House/Flickr. Some rights reserved.One of the best moves of the Corbyn campaign was having a tax policy that could be summed up as 95% of people not paying more tax. Rather late in the game, John McDonnell also announced that a Labour government would cut VAT – effectively making Labour a party of tax cuts for the majority. In such a light, Labour’s most left-wing leadership in decades was offering a promise normally made by right-wing parties.
The neoliberal discourse of low taxes has often masked a reality of the tax system becoming more regressive, with tax rises for the poorest.
Labour’s capacity to intrude on such classically neoliberal promises lies in the contradictions between neoliberalism as discourse and “actually-existing neoliberalism”. With tax, the neoliberal discourse of low taxes has often masked a reality of the tax system becoming more regressive, with tax rises for the poorest. For instance, under Thatcher, income tax rates were slashed, but VAT was doubled. Under the austerity coalition, the tax base saw shifts away from progressive and business taxation, to regressive taxation. Labour exposed this contradiction, allowing them to make the same promises as neoliberal parties have done while offering a wildly different vision of society.
