The “Panama papers” are the leak of 11.5 million files from
the database of the world’s fourth largest offshore law firm called Mossack
Fonesca. These files were obtained by an investigating journalist working for
the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, from an anonymous
source. This newspaper shared and released the files with the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Large international news
networks, such as the BBC, obtained the leaked files from the ICIJ. These
documents have revealed the myriad ways that government officials, politicians (and
their close family members and associates), and celebrities have been using
offshore tax havens to avoid paying taxes in the country they reside in. The
143 politicians discovered so far in the documents include Sigurdur Ingi
Johannsson (Prime Minister of Iceland), friends of Vladimir Putin (President of
Russia) and the father of David Cameron (British Prime Minister).
The first impact of the Panama papers has been political: that
is the deepening of the political crisis and turmoil that has plagued capitalism
since the 2008 economic crisis. Further, at the crux of this political crisis
is a legitimacy crisis. In the last economic crisis, neoliberal bourgeois
politicians were able to crush the working-class to accept the payment of billions
of dollars of their hard earned tax revenues (that were supposed to be used for
social services), to bailout banks and corporations, by wearing the ever thinning
shroud of legitimacy. In order for capitalism to effectively shift the cost of
the economic crisis to the working-class, it relied on its political and sate
machinery (corporate media, the police and the army of politicians) to convince
the working-class that the only way out of the crisis was to save the banks and
the corporations and to elect neoliberal leaders. The inexorable outcome of the
crisis for capitalism was to intensify its neoliberal class war on the working
people.
The working-class response to the economic crisis, the bourgeois
class war, was a global political shift towards the left. With waves upon waves
of austerity and the assault on social services, e.g. the cuts to the NHS in
the UK; the divide between the haves
and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the 99% and the 1%, has become wider and ossified
into the global class struggle. The working-class today thinks and acts with
the consciousness of being part of the 99%, while knowing that the 1% controls
the wealth in society and has the monopoly on violence to protect its interests
(the state and the police). The last thing that the bourgeois, the capitalist
class, wants is to be categorized as the bourgeois, and its role in society to
be illuminated and classified as the 1%, i.e. to lose its facade of legitimacy
and the illusion of representing the interests of the working-class. This is
the very reason why David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, wants to be
photographed wearing jeans, drinking a pint, and using a budget airline.
One only needs to look at the US primary elections to see
that today the working-class is asking the bourgeois, the so called “leaders”, important
class-based questions such as: which corporation is endorsing you? How is your campaign
being financed? Which special interest are you representing? Can you release
your tax records? The working people also want to see long-term voting records
and actions of the politicians. The
working-class knows that the people who represent corporate interests, or are
themselves a corporate owner, do not represent their interests. The “trust”
that was once installed in the system is now completely evaporated and the bourgeois
is desperate to hold on to any political ground still available to it. This is
why the Panama papers are extremely politically damaging for the bourgeois, and
why any so called “leader” named in the released documents is facing imminent impeachment
- as was the case for the Prime Minister of Iceland.
The Panama papers is another stone thrown at the political glasshouse
of the bourgeois. This is a legitimacy crisis, in the context of an intensified
global class struggle between the haves and the have nots: the class war
between the 99% and the 1%. The Panama papers have further lifted the shroud,
and reduced the façade of the bourgeois democracy and class rule. It is in such
political crises that the campaign of the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie
Sanders will ignite. These bourgeois politicians will run to rescue capitalism
by salvaging important political ground, and will reinforce and legitimize inequality
via the bourgeois distribution of wealth, by putting a fresh layer of lipstick
on the pig.
By: Chia Barsen
www.chiabarsen.com
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