A new report by the United Nations and loudly promoted by Nobel-prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, famous income redistributionist Thomas Piketty and a gaggle of other “intellectuals” warns that we have to slow down growth to save the planet. They call “growth” a doomed strategy, and seek a “just transition beyond growth.”
The lead paragraph of the UN report is a frighteningly idiotic ode to de-growth:
“the quest for growth at all costs can in fact exacerbate violations of rights, as governments seek to attract investment by lowering taxes on corporate profits, by weakening labour protections and by reshaping regulatory frameworks in favour of capital, thereby putting profit maximisation and investor confidence above social justice, decent work and care.”
In their “just world,” the goal is to make the world look like Bangladesh, not Singapore.
Here are some of the dozens of loopy ideas the UN report endorses:
- Wealth tax
- Inheritance and gift caps
- Fair share from corporations
- Minimum corporate tax
- Excess profit tax
- Digital tax
- Luxury carbon taxation
- Central bank mandates for social and ecological objectives
- Democratic industrial policy
- Municipal and cooperative ownership of strategic assets in the low-carbon transition
- Binding credit steering of private investment
- Nationalization of pension funds
- Universal access to health coverage
- Universal access to housing
- Universal access to clean energy
- Universal childcare benefits
- Universal basic income
- Rationing luxury commodities
- Redistribution and Equitable Governance of Land
- Debt justice
- Sovereign debt cancellation and Global South debtors’ coalition
- United Nations Framework Convention on Tax Cooperation
- Reforming and decolonizing economics education
Because of space limitations, we’ve only listed about half of the dingbat ideas the UN report endorses.
But we appreciate the honesty. How can the leftists deliver growth and prosperity when they now admit they are not even in favor of it?
And, by the way, can someone please tell us what “decolonizing economics education” means?