ST. PAUL, Minnesota - The article "Patrick Buchanan appeals to farmers with his counterfeit anticapitalism" (March 11 Militant) was a meaty piece that was read with interest by working farmers and workers interested in the struggle of producers on the land. To each one of Buchanan's demagogic nostrums and procapitalist proposals, Bill Kalman offered concrete counterproposals that point toward forging an alliance with wage workers to carry on a struggle against the capitalist bankers, landlords, and factory owners.
Some of the proposals that Kalman presents, such as cheap credit, are not ones wage workers would normally demand as part of their own fight against the employers. But in order to work toward an alliance with farmers, class-conscious workers need to offer support for the demands of working farmers, as well as small businessmen, that help bring relief from their particular forms of exploitation.
A resolution adopted by the Socialist Workers Party and communist organizations in other countries in 1938 pointed out, "The alliance proposed by the proletariat - not to the `middle classes' in general but to the exploited layers of the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie against all exploiters, including those of the middle classes - can be based not on compulsion but only on free consent, which should be consolidated in a special `contract.' This `contract' is the program of transitional demands voluntarily accepted by both sides." (See "The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International," in The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution by Leon Trotsky, from Pathfinder Press.)
Clearly presenting this "contract" and demonstrating their commitment to fight for it is the most effective way communist workers can counter the demagogy of ultrarightists and fascists like Buchanan.
One of the issues around which some capitalist politicians attempt to garner support is discontent with high taxes. Steve Forbes, a former Republican presidential hopeful, called for a flat tax of 17 percent on incomes. This appealed to some working farmers who are weighed down by a myriad of taxes with complicated forms and filing requirements. Buchanan echoed support for the flat tax. "The IRS [Internal Revenue Service] is too powerful and intrusive," he told a Houston rally. "It needs to be downsized if not one day eliminated, and we believe a flat tax is an idea that needs to be pursued and studied."
No taxes on working people
The problem with the flat tax is that it assesses the same rate of taxation on wage workers and working farmers as it does on the wealthy. Kalman countered this proposal with a call for "a single graduated tax on income from capital. All exploited producers in the countryside, such as working farmers would be exempt from such a tax."
Simply calling for a single graduated income tax, rather than one on "income from capital," actually would be more effective and more in keeping with the tradition of the workers' movement. There are some multimillionaires, such as performers, athletes, and other professionals, whose high income doesn't come from capital but should be steeply taxed. The main point is that the threshhold should be high enough to exempt workers and exploited producers.
It's difficult to improve on the demand presented in 1847 in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. They called for "a heavy progressive or graduated income tax." Likewise, in Russia on the eve of the October 1917 revolution, the tax program presented by the Bolshevik Party led by V.I. Lenin was simply, "An income tax with progressive and very high rates for large and extra-large incomes...." Lenin added that this measure could remain largely fiction, however, unless the workers could force the employers to open their books to public scrutiny and expose the multitude of loopholes through which they evade paying taxes.
Finally, the statement in Kalman's article that "Socialists oppose capital gains, sales, or value-added taxes. They all work to the benefit of the ruling rich...." This is clearly true for all forms of sales taxes, which assess the richest capitalist and poorest worker or farmer at the same rate, forcing workers to lay out a much larger percentage of their income in tax on necessities. This includes opposing so-called sin taxes on tobacco, alcohol, gasoline, and other items that are sometimes motivated on the grounds that "it's for your own good."
But capital gains taxes derive primarily from the profits investors make on the sale of their stocks or real estate, and don't generally affect exploited workers and farmers. It would be an error to campaign against a tax that primarily hits capitalist profiteers. At the same time it's not necessary to promote this measure, as the single graduated income tax is sufficient to include all income the capitalists make.
- DOUG JENNESS