In 1914, at the end of summer, the sun rises in a cloud of fire. He went to bed in 1918 in a sea of blood. Between the two, a great butchery of the poor world takes place.
The soldiers quickly learn that they are destined to be butchered. To be meat, who can that interest?
Ordinary people are experiencing in a new way, in these times of misfortune, their weight in world affairs. It is on their arms and their legs, they rightly feel, that the mighty industry of war depends. And it is on them too, they know, that the composition of the battalions depends.
How many industries, like the Sherwin Paints Co. or the Canadian Cotton Co., accustomed to cutting back on the wages of their employees, declared at the time, without hesitation, that they no longer hired men of to go fight? In the name of this facade of patriotism, they instead employ, at a lower cost, women and children. They make more profits this way, while the men are forced to go to war or become unemployed, two ways of killing them.
When income tax was introduced in Canada in 1917, it was to ensure, in the face of general rumbling protests, that it was not just ordinary people who continued to pay the high price, that of their lives, to finance this conflict.
In a world of kings whose interests clash, taxes suddenly help to create the sovereign state. The conscience of the State develops from what this new financial lever allows. In Quebec, in the provincial government, we had to wait until after the Second World War to measure the potential offered by the collection of a tax.
Public opinion, in 1917, rallied to the idea of requiring the rich, through taxation, to finance the war. Private fortunes must be placed at the disposal of the general effort, we read in the newspapers. Until then, they contribute little or nothing to the cost of hostilities. It is understood that the large fortunes should be taxed differently from the poor. Otherwise, the most tried class will continue to bear the common misfortunes alone.
In England, the adoption of the income tax makes it possible to pay at least a third of the burden of the war. In the United States, this measure is also put in place to balance the military budget over time. Tax, it is said, makes it possible to equalize everyone’s efforts at least a little better. What workers pay with their lives, wealthy people pay in money. But is this a perfect form of fairness?
There is always, in war, a real need for solidarity. Should we forget that in times of peace, very often war continues by other means?
Today we are faced with a new type of war. The theater of operations has changed. We are at the front. On the front lines of education, health, ecological transition, safeguarding our infrastructures. They have to be funded. Many have the impression that this war is almost lost as the reinforcements are slow to come.
Warren Buffett, one of the richest men on earth, declared on CNN in 2005 that there is definitely a war in our everyday world. A class war. This is “a fact”, he said. And he added that this war is being won by men like him. “It is my class, the wealthy class, that is waging this war and winning it. »
By never talking about the inequalities that people like him take advantage of, the working classes have become invisible. However, it is not because a reality is concealed that it does not exist. We have nevertheless fallen to the bottom of the trenches, by dint of wanting to believe that we all belong to the one and same regiment of the middle class.
Society has bogged down. Most of his troops were asked to be “competitive”, to “reform”, to “adapt”, to boost his “productivity”, to be “resilient”. The faithful troops gave their all. Their generals were Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney. Following them were trained many minor lieutenants who also pushed on the road to austerity. The gains, in the end, were pitiful. The losses, huge.
Should we continue on this path?
The chief economist of the European Central Bank, the Irishman Philip R. Lane, calls instead to support households by taxing high incomes and large companies more.
The Governor of the Banque de France, François Villeroy de Galhau, recommends putting an end to “the race for lower taxes”. It appears to him to be counter-productive in relation to vital social needs.
Even in London, the new Conservative Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, announced last fall additional taxes, in order to manage to support a country left in bad shape by the successive dismemberments operated by his predecessors.
In Germany, the Council of Economists has recommended that the executive raise taxes on the wealthy and tax energy producers. In 2022, oil companies shattered profit records. The Total company fattened its shareholders with more than 17 billion additional dollars. ExxonMobil recorded for its part 56 billion in profits. Chevron pocketed 35.5 billion. The main players in the world of oil have made, in a single year, gains of more than 200 billion dollars. Superprofits, in the midst of an alleged global energy crisis.
Dividends, stock market capital gains and tax loopholes must be flushed out of their entrenchments, tell us those who are most committed to overcoming the inequalities that are increasingly undermining our societies.
But in Quebec, against such opinions, the government of François Legault undertakes to further lower taxes.