Preventing a one-world corporatocracy

[phantom power]

Greg LeRoy's under-celebrated book The Great American Jobs Scam does a good job of disproving these lies. Companies tend to locate their factories and offices based on considerations far more important to their bottom lines and quality of living than minor differences between tax rates. Wage costs, education, cost of living, customer base (for retail) and myriad other factors tend (especially for non-finance businesses) the real drivers of where a company chooses to set down roots.

Still, it's true that taxes do have some influence on where many companies do some things. Things like put up inconsequential "offices" to avoid paying the taxes they should really owe. For instance, Apple corporation knows that California offers better talent, education and quality of life than Reno, Nevada. So most of their offices are stationed there. But Apple doesn't pay California taxes. Apple cheats. Here's what Apple corporation actually does:

... Apple maintains office in Reno for tax loopholes ...

Conservatives would argue that California should bring its corporate tax rate to zero in order to keep the jobs of the handful of employees in Reno--even if it means losing the education, infrastructure and quality of life that makes California the place where Apple actually wants to locate its real corporate operations. Conservatives voters are too beset with loathing and ignorance to see how this stuff works in practice. But the big money boys know the game very well.

At some point, the states in the U.S. and nations around the world are going to have to decide whether it's better to play brinksmanship on taxes and wages with one another, driving to the bottom of the barrel at the behest of corporate overlords playing them all for fools, or if it's better to cooperate with one another to create a unified, cohesive tax and regulatory code so that corporations have to play by the same rules everywhere.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/preventing-one-world-corporatocracy-by.html

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. K&R. Thanks for posting. n/t

[CrispyQ]

2. An excellent commentary.

The corporation cannot be allowed to take its place as the mightiest organization on this planet. . . . The fact that the world has sustained a dominant organizational paradigm for 500 years or so, does not mean it must continue indefinitely.

[redqueen]

3. +1