There is nothing really "radical" in Labour's plan to restore the 50% rate paid by the 1% richest taxpayers on the part of their income over and above £150,000/year. After all, this is the exactly same rate that they paid until the ConDems reduced it to 45%, in April 2012. And this hasn't stopped them from getting richer, has it?
Nevertheless this announcement caused a storm in the political and media teacup. To back up the ConDems' outraged posturing, 24 business grandees sent an open letter to the Sunday Torygraph, while the bosses' organisations were issuing angry protests.
According to these well-heeled people, this tiny 5% increase in the highest rate of income tax would, in the words of a government spokesman, "put the recovery at risk (and) drive away investment." Worse, apparently, according to the bosses' CBI, it would "put talented people off coming to the UK to invest and create jobs."
100% lies!
The hypocrites! What "recovery" might be put "at risk"? Apart from their profits, nothing has "recovered" as far as we know - and certainly not our jobs, wages or conditions!
Nor would the 1% richest taxpayers really suffer from Labour's miserly 5% tax increase. According to tax experts, they would only have to fork out an additional £6bn - which would still leave them with an average annual income of £240,000 after tax! They'll hardly end up in Benefit Street!
As to the kind of "talented people" that the CBI is referring to - characters who sit in boardrooms, earning fat salaries and bonuses, without being of any use to society - what do we need them for? After all, these are the parasites who have been cutting jobs and wages, while reducing socially useful investment to the bare bones, over the past six years - just to maximise company profits and shareholders' dividends.
Contrary to what the bosses and their politicians would have us believe, these people aren't in the business of creating jobs. They're just in the business of making money for themselves and their class. And they would be put off coming here, says the CBI? If only!
The real "talented people" that society needs are the workers - manual and intellectual - who produce all social wealth. They are the production workers and engineers, the nurses and doctors, the cleaners and train drivers, the janitors and teachers, the postal workers and IT specialists, etc., without whom society would come to a standstill.
And unlike the fat cat parasites, these indispensable workers do not earn anything near £150,000 a year!
Tax the thieves and only them!
This is precisely the sleight of hand which lies behind the furore raised by the question of the 50% rate - a sleight of hand for which Labour has just as much responsibility as the ConDems, by confining itself to tinkering at the edges with a tax system which is fundamentally designed to favour the capitalist class.
Indeed, contrary to what the politicians would have us believe, those earning £150,000 a year - let alone the several millions earned by the CEOs of large British companies - are not paid for the work they do. In reality, their income is taken out of the profits that their companies make by robbing workers of their labour.
The fact is, that in this upside-down society, workers get robbed twice.
First, they get robbed by their employers who pay them wages which represent only a fraction of the wealth created by their labour - with the rest going into the company's profits.
And second, they get robbed by the state, which amputates their wages even further - whether in the form of income tax, council tax, VAT, excise duties or National Insurance contributions.
But why should the income of our labour - our wages - be taxed at all in the first place? Why shouldn't taxes be taken entirely out of the money already stolen from us by the bosses? The state could take its tax out of company profits (instead of cutting the corporation tax rate year after year); out of every form of financial profit (instead of ensuring the reduced tax rate enjoyed today by speculative funds); out of the income of the wealthy, such as those earning £150,000 a year and above; but also out of their wealth - which is nothing other than profits that they have accumulated over the years, decades and generations, by robbing the working class of its labour.
Then, and only then, could the taxation system be considered "fair"!