The Financial Transaction TaxPart 1 of 6
Why this tax is different
It is not a reform. It goes after the people who control finance, and the wealth they took through slavery and empire.
This FTT is systemic, not reformist
Reformist policies such as wealth taxes or one-off reparations payments miseducate the public and help expand capitalism, which further entrenches racism, inequalities and climate change.
This FTT is systemic, by targeting the epicentre of capitalism, finance capital and therefore the root of power.
Increasing the tax over time systematically strips elites of their wealth and power enabling a just, peaceful and sustainable economy to be born in its place.
Only then are we emancipated and liberated from the legacies of enslavement of colonialism.
It targets the engine of imperialism – the people who control finance capital
It naturally targets the most wealthiest people and corporations on the planet by taxing the trading done on the world’s major markets and ‘assets’ at a wholesale level, such as shares, derivatives, debt, gold and oil markets.
This FTT is a policy proposal that applies to people who are trading on exchanges and markets, (not the trading market infrastructure itself) based in the jurisdiction in which it has been made into law. So if the FTT is made into law in a country, and a financial exchange or market in that country decides to relocate to another country and its wealthy stay behind, they still have to pay the tax
E.g. If the FTT becomes the law in the US, and a US based hedge fund buys oil derivatives in Saudi Arabia where the FTT is not the law, they still pay the FTT. It is known as taxation based on the residency principle of financial instruments similar to the definition used in the UK Labour Party Election Manifesto by former socialist leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.
This FTT targets the spoils of enslavement and colonialism
Cruel and contradictory capitalism, which requires injustice and inequality for its growth, can never be free of the blood of our ancestors.
Imperialists have manufactured the debt slavery (valued at $300 trillion) of humanity and future generations, in order for them to enjoy the spoils of our labour. This includes financialisation, the process of legally allowing capitalists to make billions of dollars in profits without even attempting to invest in society, but instead, by trading and speculating in financial instruments across the financial markets, which reinforce their own power in politics.
Our bondage will remain unless we force system change. Only the Ubuntu Restoration Tax targets capitalism at a systemic level for reparative justice and system change through the $16 trillion dollar day financial markets, the value of what they have steal from us every day.
This FTT delivers reparative justice and system change
Reparative justice as truth, healing and repair:
- It raises billions of dollars for immediate reparative justice to pay for the material conditions we need to speak the truth, heal and repair.
- It cancels politically made poverty, hunger, destitution, debt and climate change and other forms of impoverishment
Reparative justice as emancipation and liberation:
- As the tax increases, it will go towards weakening capitalism and imperialism, that is responsible for maintaining the legacies of slavery and colonialism such as racism, inequalities and climate change.
- It enables global socialist and co-operative alternatives that bring freedom and democracy.
For truth, healing a repair
A global policy (the Ubuntu tax) for reparations from enslavement and colonialism
For emancipation and liberation
Raising the tax rate to weaken capitalism in order to change power relations and build a new political economy that is just, democratic, equal and sustainable