Over the last year Amazon paid $0 dollars in taxes after earning $11 billion dollars in profit. Yes, that’s an 11 followed by 9 zeros.
This revelation — the second year in a row Amazon has not paid taxes — comes during the onset of political and social upheaval. Not yet a tumultuous upheaval, no, but an awakening of sorts: People are becoming fed-up with miserliness. People are becoming restless in the age of wealth inequality.
And while corporate tax dodges are not exactly synonymous with the problem of an individual’s wealth-hoarding, they are symptomatic of the same problem. This problem has gained enough purchase to become a topic of conversation for everyone, not only Progressives. But so far, the topic of wealth inequality has only focused on one thing.
It’s about the structure of the economy, they say.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why we continue to believe what ‘they’ say. Sure, taxes are about economics. Government expenditures are about economics. And yeah, wealth inequality is also about economics. But it’s not just about economics. It’s in the name itself — inequality.
Equality is an element of justice. Equality is about political and social life as much as it’s about economic life. To understand this, ask yourself the following question: Would…
