A Day at the Global Progressive Forum
The Global Progressive Forum is a bit like the Take Back America conference has been over recent years in the US – a collection of activists, elected officials, and academics who all share a concern for how to move things back in a more progressive direction. Europe, as many are aware, has been on a march to the right. Of course, everything is relative. The right in this context means a more conservative interpretation of European style social democracy. By contrast to the US, Merkel’s and Sarkozy’s conservatism is downright leftist. Rush Limbaugh would choke just trying to say the word when describing Europe’s version of a safety net. He’d probably call it ‘communist’ or something which isn’t terribly far from the truth, again in contrast to the US experience.
One of the most interesting things to emerge from this two-day gathering held in the chambers of the European Parliament, has been the repeated raising of concerns about tax havens and the role they have played in the melt-down. This isn’t well understood in the US, but the movement of capital and income through tax-haven subsidiaries was a contributing factor in low accountability, but also in avoidance of tax. As everyone is desperate for revenue, there is some possibility that taking on this beast will become a signal call from many for how future reforms need to be structured.
One speaker noted yesterday that if one has to rely, as is currently the case, on agreements between two countries to manage tax reporting and reciprocity, the number of countries in the world would require some 18,000 agreements. Not likely. However, a truly international regime – like the WTO, for example – could be put in place, perhaps required for participation in WTO or some such. A fascinating idea.
One other surprise, speaking of the WTO, has been that the Secretary General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, is an honored member of this community and will be speaking tomorrow. Who knew he was one of these socialist leaning Europeans? It does make one wonder if we have got this all right – our American blanket critique of trade which we typically see as benefitting corporate interests over poor people. What appears to be more the case is that we just haven’t got it right yet. True, corporate interests have got a great deal of what they want out of trade deals, but the same mechanisms can be used for much more positive social impacts, if we just have the will.