Protection from the 1%
Amonth ago, some of the richest and most powerful people on the planet gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. The annual conference has come under increased fire over the past few years from people who say that wealthy elites are developing and promoting policies that benefit them at the expense of everyone else.
We’ve come a long way from the days of tribal chiefs, absolute monarchies and autocrats. But make no mistake: the world is still ruled by powerful political structures, and people who want to entrench their power and privilege while regulating and controlling the lives of others.
A unique survey — titled Them vs. U.S., published last month — backs up that view. In the survey, nearly 50 per cent of American elite — defined as “those having a postgraduate degree, a household income of more than $150,000 annually, and living in a zip code with more than 10,000 people per square mile” — say there is too much individual freedom in the United States. Around the same percentage of average Americans said the complete opposite, saying there is “too much government control” over their lives.
Historically, working- and middle-class people have had to fight tooth-and-nail to defend their liberties against the rich and powerful. These rights are today entrenched in constitutional documents such as the U.S. Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
These esteemed documents are the modern-day descendants of the Magna Carta, the great charter of English liberties established in the 1200s that reined in the absolute power of the monarch, and introduced rights and freedoms that are now staples of democracies throughout the western world.
But what about our economic rights and freedoms? Who protects these interests from the overreach of the rich and powerful? This, for me, is one of the most powerful arguments for why our society needs an economic charter of rights.
Take taxes, for example. At its core, taxation is all about the state seizing a portion of the wealth earned by its citizens.
In a progressive tax system such as ours, the rich are taxed at much higher rates. But the reality is they often pay far less than they should because of loopholes, deductions, writeoffs and countless other avoidance schemes that high-priced lawyers and accountants use to lower their wealthy clients’ tax bills.
It might not be fair, but it’s completely legal. Essentially, the game is rigged in favour of the rich and other powerful special interests, including big businesses.
Large corporations have lobbying clout, an army of lawyers and the financial resources to navigate and take advantage of our convoluted, overly complex tax system. Small businesses, on the other hand, get crushed by the time and money they’re required to spend in order to follow murky tax laws and make tax filings.
And that’s not all that small businesses are up against. Small-business owners also have to routinely wrestle with a tangle of regulations that keep them tied up in knots all the time. This is where an economic charter of rights can level the playing field.
One of the seven key principles in the charter I’m proposing would require government to simplify our tax system by making it easy to understand, clearcut and fair, with no loopholes and deductions for the rich and special interests. The charter would also force governments to cut the slew of needless regulations that harm small businesses far more than large corporations.
AN ECONOMIC CHARTER OF RIGHTS CAN LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD.
The charter would make life a lot easier for most Canadians and small-business owners. It would also be much fairer. But most of all, it would revive and regenerate our economy by giving millions of everyday Canadians a shot at boosting their income and wealth.
Democratic charters protect the democratic rights Canadians have come to cherish — rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and mobility. Economic charters will do the same: they will — for the first time ever — constitutionally protect and promote the economic interests of Canada’s workers and small-business owners.