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Reimagining tax through speculative design: or, how to critique neoliberalism — Liam Stanley

Neoliberalism means society is restructured in favour of capital — “this process is based on building a shared common sense that individual and national prosperity can be achieved by unleashing personal and commercial freedoms … and a reassertion of disciplinary state power.

The market allows us to reduce the ‘value’ of something to a single number (price), ignoring the “hermeneutic pluralism and associated dangers of politics”.

The Annual Tax Summary (ATS) relates tax to an individualised market exchange (a good/service that you’re paying for), yet this view on tax means we are likely to dislike it since it will most likely involve spending you disagree with.

It is telling a narrative of taking your money, spending it here, that is your contribution.

How do we shift left-ist politics from ‘anti- politics’ (always what we are against), to ‘pro- politics’ (what do we want?) — James Ferguson.

The ATS redesigns “all faced the same dilemma: how to simply and strikingly communicate a powerful and elegant message to taxpayers — without falling back on reproducing a ‘price’ some sort, and thereby ‘failing’ the very terms of the critique we set out.”

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