Newsletter No 6

Date: 30 October 2024

 

Junk diets, taxing value chains

This month on Critical Takes, Benjamin Wood explained why ultra-processed diets are a problem of corporate power and offered a list of structural reforms which go beyond insisting that consumers change what they eat and drink.

A key demand of the tax justice movement is unitary taxation with formulary apportionment. The second part should mean that the (typically poorer) countries where stuff is made by people are able to tax a larger share of the resulting profits than at the moment, when global tax norms give more weight to intangible assets like software, knowhow and brands. However, Clair Quentin argued that formulary apportionment won’t work in cases where a multinational doesn’t own the factories and controls them with its market power instead.

If tax-minded readers of this newsletter have thoughts on this issue, do get in touch!

 

Coming up soon:

An on-the-ground account of the power imbalance between small farmers and a large multinational in southern Africa.

And … audio! Starting from November, Critical Takes will be posting recordings of interesting chats with people across civil society. Upcoming topics include: Oxfam’s ambitious thinking about corporate power, pushing back against data-driven exploitation of workers and a look at the negotiations over a UN tax convention.

 

Interesting takes in other places:

Those of us who work in countries of the global North are accustomed to talk of “corporate power” as the power of Northern-based multinationals from the private sector. And, indeed, it mostly is. However, this analysis for Bloomberg of solar power companies in the US and China, by David Fickling, reminds us that Chinese firms are overtaking US firms in certain industrial sectors.

The idea is still pervasive in official circles that private finance, cleverly incentivised by states, can be relied on to solve global crises from climate breakdown to entrenched poverty. Here’s a call for a global ecosystem of public banks as an alternative to relying so heavily on private investors.

In civil society we tend to talk about Big Tech as if it were one thing, though the tech giants are sometimes competing against each other. To show how hostile it can get, here's Microsoft alleging that Google is creating an astroturf lobby group to discredit Microsoft. Obviously Critical Takes can't confirm this allegation, but the fact that Microsoft's making it is newsworthy in itself. As The Verge explained earlier this year, the two giant corporations are at odds over the future of AI and internet search.

By the time the next newsletter comes out, we'll know who the new US president will be. Until then, good luck with your work!

The Editor