ASAP

I was just thinking about a post on tax havens. One of the few positive developments out of the crisis has been that the developed countries have been forced to crack down on tax havens, most of which are located either in the developed world or in associated jurisdictions like the British Overseas Territories (aka Crown Colonies), imposing requirements for information exchange and so on. That provides a basis for similar demands from less developed countries.

There was an investigation into this last year on Australia’s ABC which looked at Conoco Phillips and Woodside Petroleum in particular. It is estimated that East Timor is owed around US$3 billion in unpaid taxes. See the link below:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-01/miners-owe-east-timor-millions-in-taxes/4289612

or you can watch it here:

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/09/27/3599022.htm

ASAP, a clever acronym to say the least.

Is it just another NGO, masquerading as a neutral and disinterested entity?

I am sort of mystified by this. As I’m understanding it — which could be very poorly — it seems we have a group of academics who are exploiting and profiting from poverty in terms of status, prospects, and probably remuneration. We have ‘professors and graduate students, … philosophers, economists, political scientists, and others from around the world’ making use of the poor and their various predicaments as a career.

Perhaps predictably, they appear to be concerned about tax receipts. It seems that some people or other are practicing ‘corruption, smuggling, money laundering, and corporate tax evasion’ (to say nothing of exacting profits, extracting cheap resources, and exploiting markets) and are thus depriving someone else — governments, surely — of making efforts towards ‘development and poverty relief.’ Governments should get more of the loot, evidently.

But we know from direct observation that governments consist of, or are directed by, ruling classes — the rich, in other words — and every major organization of economy since the invention of slavery (I speak of feudalism and capitalism, as well as of classical slavery) has usually been a positive-feedback loop, which, like all undamped positive-feedback loops, eventually blows up, usually in an unpleasant manner. That is, the richer the rich get, the more and harder they extract, until they finally destroy the processes and societies they parasitize, and violent conflict and other breakdowns result. And a new game starts.

So we have some people studying the current game professionally, to dress it up and smooth it along down at the U.N., et cetera.

It’s not a big deal, but it all seems unsavory or perhaps absurd. Or maybe I just have a nasty mind.

Nicholas Shaxson has a couple of books on these topics (flows out of Africa and tax havens) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Shaxson

I am mystified as to why someone would think these academics are involved in exploiting the global poor.

To receive a benefit from an activity isn’t the same as exploiting the persons involved. A doctor receives a benefit from treating patients, but it is a mistake to take the doctor as exploiting the patients.

One might suggest that these academics receive a benefit because they are supporting policies which places money in the hands of the government, which in turn will end up back in the academics pockets. But even if this were so (which as far as I can tell is completely bananas) supposing that the policy the academics support actually do significantly benefit the global poor and that this was the academics primary goal, it would be clearly wrong to describe what they were up to as exploitation.

There are some earlier books and articles supporting the comments in #7. For example, this review of Edward Brenan’s book http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/06/the-ideology-of-philanthropy/ Marion Foucarde in “The construction of a Global Profession: The Transnationalization of Economics”(2006) and more recently David Warsh in http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2011.12.18/1321.html
This is not my area (my area is mathematics). I tried to follow the topic a bit whether the emphasis on higher education and research institutes in India at the expense of primary education was a good idea or not.

@13

Thanks for providing the invaluable links.

Of course a general critique of the knowledge-power relationship and how the institutions fit in the larger scheme of things is provided by Jean-François Lyotard in <The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Characteristically, however, our Left seems committed to a vow of silence on the subject.