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(1) ATTAC (2000), tax havens 
1001 nuits. 

(2) information is extracted from their Internet site which constitutes a good documentation on the question. It is a site of capitalists who address to the capitalists, without half-measure. 

(3) Philippe Baqué (1999), a new black gold, plundering of the works of art in Africa the Paris-Mediterranean. (Philippe Baquet is a journalist in the Diplomatic World 

(4) Rhone-Alps regional Unit of the Anarchist Federation (1996), Universalization of capitalism and class-struggle, Anarchist analyzes of evolution of the state, capitalism and prospects for social revolution, Monde Libertaire Ed. 

(5) Le Monde of November 21, 1998. 

(6) in the tax havens p. 16. 

(7) in the tax havens p. 99. 

(8) in the tax havens p. 58. 

(9) for a criticism of the improper use of the word Globalisation "From "Globalization of capitalism" to "Globalization": just a question of vocabulary? 
[soon in english !]

(10) ATTAC 2000, All on ATTAC 
1001 nuits. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tax havens, 
neoreformism 
and the role of the State 
in the new world order 

[For a better understanding for our english-reading comrads, we add some explanations]

For some time, the question of the tax havens agitates the left neoreformist. The French press, in particular L'Humanite [official communist paper] and Le Monde Diplomatique [left-hand international analysis review] devoted several articles to it these last months. ATTAC [Tobin tax supporters] has just published with the editions 1001 Nuits a small book devoted to this subject (1). This one, which profits from a significant promotional cover, proposes a study of the phenomenon of tax avoidance, written by the scientific consulting of ATTAC, and publishes broad extracted the French parliamentary report on Lichtenstein, which occupies half of the hundred pages of the book. There would be sorrow to find a divergence basic between these two analyses. It is true that this question has interested for several years the states of the European Union. Today, France seems to seriously consider sanctions against the principality of Lichtenstein, one of the principal centres of attraction of tax avoidance in Europe because of its famous bank secrecy foolproof than that of Switzerland. The United Kingdom, for its part, already did the housework since 1998, by making pressure on the anglo-Normans islands. FINOR company , specialized in the consulting and the assistance with the "offshore" creation of companies recommends to its customers: " not to resort more to the British territorialities (Island of Man, Jersey, Guernesey, Islands of the Caribbean, etc...) for the creation of their company nor for the opening or the maintenance of bank accounts. Although these jurisdictions were privileged tax havens of long years during, they are not today any more the solution suitable with the protection of your inheritance because of the legislative reforms in progress in the Member States of the European Union." (2) One could not be clear any more. Moreover, the same company recommends to its customers to settle in Great Britain for the creation of companies, because of a legislation more advantageous than in France. 

Each country thus appears with the eyes of the capitalists like a whole of design features, constituting an offer more or less adapted to their needs. The guiding principle of the offshore oil rig, it is to establish, in a more or less fictitious way, its company in a country having the suitable legislation tax, i.e. lightest possible. The choice of establishment is done according to several criteria: political and economic stability, technical and banking infrastructures, flexibility of the legislation, system of imposition. One will note the first criterion, which corresponds to traditional attributions of the State: to ensure a command favourable with the good development of the businesses. But other criteria its interesting to analyze, in particular the ideal legislation such as it is defined by already evoked FINOR company : " This one must modern and flexible, be adapted to the international businesses: weak starting capital, obligations of recording nonnecessary or limited to the bare minimum, possibility of holding the boards of directors and the general assemblies shareholders everywhere in the world, possibility of emitting share warrants to bearer, possibility of absence of book-keeping, possibility of naming administrators or shareholders professional agents, guarantee of a complete confidentiality as for the businesses of the customer." 

In other words, it must be adapted to the principles of the bleaching of the money resulting from not-official activities, since it is absolutely impossible under these conditions of tracing the source and the destination of the money. One knows that the principal traffics covered by this system are the drug and the plundering of African art (3), i.e. sectors criminalized since relatively little time and who are the subject of an active tolerance in the higher realms of the states of the "first world". But more generally, this ideal legislation must make it possible the companies to escape from a taxation considered to be too heavy and too inquisitorial. 

These characteristics relate to only certain types of companies, more particularly those qu are occupied of trade and service, insurance, banks, the maritime companies, or the investment companies, in other words of capitalist groups which melt their richness on non-productive activities. But the others do not function differently, they seek simply other conditions. One knows the case of Nike and Totalfina with Indonesia. The criteria are then those of the social dumping (political stability, weak organization of the working class, weak wages and loads, availability of the labour) or ecological (weak legislation on the polluting or destroying activities). There is also a dumping of competences (high technicality for weak wages), whose India is a known case: the data-processing companies use there developers formed well for wages much lower than their American or European equivalents. The offer of a country can also hold with the availability of the raw materials or the facility of transport. One touches here with the definition even State in the current phase of development of capitalism: a service company based on a territoriality and a population (4). This phenomenon existed already at the national level, with a competition between the cities, exacerbated by the system of the free zones and the industrial parks. It thus did nothing but develop at the planetary level. 

Why thus the European states they decided to tackle the tax havens, while starting with those on which they can make pressures indeed, like the îles.anglo-Normans or Lichtenstein? The principal reason of this mobilization is of a financial nature: the loss of earnings related to tax avoidance is enormous. It would currently create for itself in the world 140 000 companies offshore per annum. In 1998, when the British government tackled the îles.anglo-Normans, the sums deposited in these tax havens reached 350 billion books, that is to say about half of Gross domestic product annual British. A third came from the United Kingdom (5). In France, this loss of earnings is estimated at 250 billion francs (6). In other words, the States deliver a true economic war intended to maintain their re-entries tax. From this point of view, the world is a vast tax market, in which each country tries to cut the best share. 

These revenues from taxes have two objectives: to make live the public bourgeoisie (elected officials and senior officials) and allow at the State to hold its promises with respect to its private customers, in term of equipment, subsidies to the companies, social peace, etc. In the "new world order", the competition between states is exacerbated, since to the territorial conflicts competition for the collecting of generating companies of revenues from taxes was added. However, the tax havens are countries which, by offering particular conditions, are posed in lowest bidder tax. This tactic is paying for them, because it allows in states deprived of raw materials, a wide territory and a significant population, to compete economically with the "large ones" by centering their development on the provision of banks or law firms. In Liechtenstein, as announces it the French parliamentary report/ratio, 8 deputies out of 25 are lawyers or related to capitalizations (7): the collusion between "public" and private middle-class is total here. But this divergence of interests makes these countries dangerous for the States which live, on the contrary, their tax incomes. Thus, the French parliamentary report/ratio proposes the following threat: " Lichtenstein could constitute a first case of application of this legislation which will be however fully effective only when is adopted by the whole of the industrialized countries in order to put at the round of applause international community the States which do not deserve to be integrated there " (8). 

The "globalization of capitalism" (9) rests indeed on a double principle: the emergence of a world super-state, playing exactly the same role of service company, specialized in the arbitration of conflicts and the maintenance of law and order; in parallel, the maintenance (even multiplication) of the national states, allowing the companies to choose best the conditions with a sufficiently varied offer. In the case of the tax havens, the role of the world super-state would be thus to guarantee the rights of the company-state most powerful by putting at the step the most aggressive rivals. 

Why ATTAC is it interested of also close with the tax havens? In other words, which role comes to play the left neoreformist in this economic war between states for the control of the tax market? The first answer, such as it appears in the texts of this association, comes from a prospective logic on the feasibility of famous Tobin Tax on the financial transactions. How to tax the transfers with capital if those escape essentially from the attention from the organizations charged to recover this tax ? From this point of view, the neoreformists are simply consequent with themselves. But it is all the same interesting to note such a measure of agreement between a parliamentary commitee and an association which is proclaimed independent. 

In a materialist analysis, this standpoint clearly seems an ideological preparing with the service of the interests of class of the capitalism of state, i.e. elected officials and senior officials who draw their resources from the taxation, and of the mixed capitalism of economy, i.e. private capitalists having of the companies domiciled in France, which agree to be subjected to a strong tax pressure in exchange of significant subsidies (including in the form of tax relief or premiums to precarious employment) and of the conquest of public markets, even of privatizations. They thus have interest so that the French State profits from significant incomes, under penalty of seeing drying up the basket. A part of the private capitalists is thus likely to form a unit with their public counterparts to fight tax avoidance. They are all the more thorough there as, more the loss of capital is significant for the State, more the tax pressure on their company is likely to increase. The territorial elected officials (municipal, departmental or regional), which forms a significant layer of the public bourgeoisie, are also interested in the maintenance on the spot of the companies, for multiple reasons: taxation, system of the public markets, social links direct. 

The position of ATTAC very extremely feels its links at the same time with the parties of government (particularly the French Communist Party) and the elected officials territorial: a Land (the Limousin), a department (Seine-Saint-Denis) and 64 cities, mainly communist and socialist, are adherent ATTAC as people morals, as the other book published recently at the 1001 nights reveals it, All on ATTAC (10). One includes/understands better under these conditions the discrete chauvinism of ATTAC, which, without giving in aggressive nationalism, regards the existence of the States and the borders as self-explanatory, and defends the maintenance of the companies "to the country" (the food sovereignty of the people preached by the peasant confederation [left-handed direct action trade-union, lead by Jose Bove] being a demonstration of this approach), remake of Let us produce French and of Let us buy French   once used by French Communist Party. By a chain of overlaps, on which the analysis of the real composition of ATTAC would undoubtedly be lighting, association is found to support the same positions exactly as the state, while giving a more militant colouring, more claiming. 

By its positions hyper-etatists, favorable to the intervention of the State in the economy, therefore with the capitalism of economy mixed, ATTAC constitutes a good vector of ideological diffusion to regain the ground lost by the public or parapublic bourgeosie vis-a-vis with the offensive of private represented by the neoliberal current. It positions thus on the line of face in a war between the State and the private capital, larval war because of the necessary complementarity between the two. It is not necessary for that that the militants are conscious since they are companies ideological, even "spectacular" in the situationnist understanding. 

The ideological lie which is used as base with the mixt capitalist economy, it is the amalgam between state and public utility. The state is not public, in spite of appearances, and it is not an abstraction. It is consisted a class of individuals, whose capacity rests ultimately on the use of the force ("the State, it is a gang of armed men ", according to the expression of Engels). This class is composed at the same time of politicians and bureaucrates, the delimitation being often fuzzy (in France, the ENA [National Administration School] trains at the same time the political leaders, the senior officials and the owners of companies related to État).Elle constitutes themselves around an interest common to the maintenance of the system of which they benefit principal. The fact of assuming a certain number of tasks defined as being public services formed today simply part of the offer suggested in the companies by the State. Which is the portrait of France on the world market of the establishments of companies: structural equipment (transport, energy), a population in a position to work (social peace, social control, system of health, schooling), an ideal environment for the executives (security, tourism, culture). The public utility is thus perfectly instrumentalised in this process, since it aims ultimately not to the satisfaction of the population, but to release from the profits for the "public" bourgeoisie. 

In France, there is a strong "left" culture, attached to the public utility. ATTAC is based on this culture, principles considered as assets and ever discussed again which bring to rather denounce the State on its disengagement than on its existence even. The role of the neoreformists simply consists in regilding the tarnished blazon of the State by putting their powerful propaganda under the sign of this amalgam state / public utility, which returns constantly in their declarations. 

The criticism of the concept of public utility, already undertaken by the libertarians, is thus an essential task to today detach this one of the State, just as the denunciation of the legitimacy of the tax is a significant weapon in this work. To affirm that the economy must aim at the creation of goods and services useful to each individual and not to generate financial profits for some, it is also to show that all should be public utility, and to denounce the arbitrary character of what is currently defined like such. Why water should be a public utility as ATTAC claims it, but not food or clothing ? It is this type of nonsense which is never called into question by the neoreformists. 

The analysis of the role of the State in the "new world order" clearly shows the complementarity between national states, world super-state and globalisation of the exchanges, but also to note the effects of their competition. The so much decried "globalisation" from left to the right, does not carry out to the globalim (worldism), i.e. with the world unification, but on the contrary with the multiplication of the States, having each one a different offer. The existence of tax havens, of which some are of recent creation (as the Aguilla island since 1995), is thus not a tare of the system, but a normal demonstration. To support the neoreformists on this ground would amount taking seat in the fight between two forms of piracy in the war for the control of the tax market. Only concrete manner to fight against tax havens and profit logic, is the struggle aagainst all form of state, nationalism and capitalism, ie. fighting for a real libertarian and egalitarian worldism.
 

Nicolas (05/07/00)