He advocates raising taxes directly out of speculation and giving the worker a greater role in any company
His speech is crystal clear in favor of another capitalism in which workers’ intervention improves, the increase in taxes on capital gains or a growing role of women in the economy. Mariana Mazzucato (Rome, 1968) dissects the post-pandemic economic realities affected by inflation, days before participating in #WomenNOW, the congress on female leadership organized by Vocento on June 16-17 in Madrid.
-After overcoming the crisis of the pandemic, now comes the inflation crisis. How does the continuous price increase affect the economy?
The problem itself is not inflation. The problem is the origin of inflation. If there’s inflation because the economy is growing, that’s fine. But what we have now is inflation because we have a lot of energy companies looking to make a profit, and they’ve been allowed to raise their prices even though their actual costs aren’t increasing at the same rate. You would think that governments would be willing to deal with this situation. But these companies say you’re either raising costs for consumers or they’re going out of business. So there are different countries in the world that react in different ways. In the UK, for example, they have barely done anything and have let consumers have higher energy bills, which is a big problem, as in many countries, because real wages have not increased in the last 30 years. We’ve also put a lot of small businesses out of business because of this increased cost because it’s a very market-oriented approach that doesn’t work. All this means that we will see civil unrest as people all over Europe are very angry.
-What should be the measures to tackle this situation? Selective or general help?
-The problem is they are still in reactive mode now. Of course, you should help the most vulnerable first. And it is not only the most vulnerable, but also, for example, many middle-class jobs that are being tackled in economies where the structural composition of the economy is not right. We do not share wealth creation with everyone and allow a super-financialized form of capitalism. And this has been one of the main problems in modern capitalism, where profits are not reinvested in the system, in society itself.
-What do you mean?
-Many companies use their profits for things like buying back shares, which in turn increase stock prices, stock options and bonuses for directors. This is a reinvestment crisis that affects not only the most vulnerable, but also the working class employed by profitable companies. It’s about redesigning a capitalist system where you really have a different way of producing wealth, where we invest in industries, innovation policies.
-Should we raise, maintain or lower taxes?
– Increasing VAT is a form of regressive tax because you punish people with a low income more. If we want long-term growth, we need to raise the capital gains tax. We could also introduce tax breaks on the kind of capital you actually invest long-term and not short-term. The problem is that most of the income in business is not obtained through corporate taxes. We need to tax dividends in a more normal way instead of allowing them to be taxed less. Because that’s what fuels the financialization of the economy, because a lot of money is made simply by moving existing assets. And if you want a green transition, we need to make sure we tax materials more than labor. Currently, we have no smart tax on the material composition of the production. For example, if you want to decarbonize steel and cement, you have to make it more profitable.
-What will the future capitalism you advocate look like?
-There are different kinds of capitalism. In some countries, unions can be found in company councils, such as Scandinavia. And other places, like in Italy, where unions have become increasingly weak, with reduced bargaining power. When we talk about capitalism, it’s not just one type of system that we remove and throw away. In reality they are results, decisions that we make within companies, in public institutions, but above all in how all social actors relate to each other.
-And what should be the role of women in this context?
-In the last crisis, women suffered much more than men because of their greater burden of care. When there is a crisis, people who start working part-time sometimes find it more difficult to re-enter the labor market. We know that the solidarity economy has not been given sufficient resources. This crisis has shown us the enormous importance of care. In my book I talk about all the distortions when we confuse price with value.
Which leaders do we need? What messages do we send in these moments of uncertainty? Which social initiatives are relevant for the future? All these questions, and many more, will be answered by the national and international representatives of the defense of human rights, culture, science, sport, economics or activism who will participate in the fourth edition of Santander WomenNOW. The international meeting is organized by Vocento and will take place on 16 and 17 June in Madrid.
Entitled “Leadership in Uncertain Times,” Santander WomenNOW will feature, among other participants, Victoria Alonso, president of post-production, visual effects and animation and executive producer at Marvel Studios; the prestigious economist Mariana Mazzucato; Pau Gasol, President of the Gasol Foundation; Ángeles Santamaría, CEO of Iberdrola Spain; Fawzia Koofi, former Vice President of the National Assembly of Afghanistan; Adriana Cerezo, taekwondo Olympic silver medalist in Tokyo or Russian opponent Lyubov Sobol. Filmmaker and environmentalist Alexandra Cousteau will also participate in the event; Jeffrey Epstein’s Victims’ Attorney Sigrid McCawley; the psychiatrist Luis Rojas Marcos; Laura Fernández Espeso, CEO of Medriapro Studio; Cynthia Germanotta, president of the Born This Way Foundation and mother of Lady Gaga; or the writer Virginia Feito.
Santander WomenNOW has the support of Banco Santander as Global Partner, the sponsorship of DKV, Heineken, Iberdrola, Iberia, Inditex, L’Oréal Paris and the collaboration of El Corte Inglés, Hotel Princesa Plaza Madrid, Multiópticas and Salesforce. The congress can be followed in person in the auditorium of El Beatriz Madrid. To attend, you can now register for free on the website Congreso.womennow.es.
In addition, the event can be followed live on the webpages of womennow.es, the portal of mujerhoy.com, as well as on the website of this newspaper during the event.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
