Concerning the discussion on tax, and how to make a tax system that actually work.
First of all, we need to understand what the idea behind progressive tax really is. Marx had the idea about progressive tax from a classic philosopher called Democritus. The idea is, that society has a geometrical form. It can be made like a pyramid, that is the rich in the top, and the poor in the bottom, or it can be levelled out, so that there are fewer poor in the bottom.
What you do is, that you tax the richer more than the poorer.
It has the effect, that we have a society that is more equal, and equality gives us harmony.
So progressive tax is really a tool to create happiness and citizens that are content.
What it does however, is that it hinders creativity in the area of production, and in some cases, rich people abandon their country, and goes somewhere else. We have this problem in Denmark and in Norway right now. The rich don’t see it as a just system.
In a democracy however these measures are often popular, because there are more poor than rich. The rich being a minority in the Aristotelian sense, makes the politician a bit wary about making too steep a progressive tax system, because the rich don’t like to get abused, as any minority. Here I go with the classic differentiation between mass and minority, where it is very important that just because there is a majority, doesn’t necessarily make the majorities motives right. As it goes with other minorities like gays and native americans. Rich people are also a potential minority, even though it sounds a little weird, but that is what it is.
Anyway, the discussion of how to keep the production WITHIN the nation, could be inspired by the idea of the progressive tax. We could, potentially create a system that is like the progressive tax system, with the key difference, that the cheapest you can get away with in terms of tax, is valued by the amount of production you keep in the country.
So say the farmers, who, by the nature of their trade, would get a low tax, and the IT company that has outsourced most their production would get a high tax.
In this way, it is calculable for the company how much they would get the production cheaper if made in the far east, they would have to calculate an extra tax.
So it is not, that they cannot make things abroad, they can, but it would be more expensive. This would incentivise the companies to keep the production in the country, and it would not destroy the free trade agreements we have already. We can still trade freely across borders, according to our strengths. It would essentially be fair.
This measure should be discussed in detail, and be rolled out after a lot of discussion on the practical matters of the tax. Because we should discuss the how and the what. To make it right, we need to be able to compute the tax in a fair way, how do we do that, and so on.
It wouldn’t cost the state anything, because an increased production in the country would levy taxes from all those who work in the factory and those who are secondary beneficiaries of the factory. All in all, a lowered tax on the patriotic business life, would gain the country they are in.
So that is a possibility, to really implement the ideas of Adam Smith and Aristotle in terms of tax levying.
G-d bless the will to find new ways to make a better economy and more jobs to everybody.