Présentation de l’éditeur

Global tax policy has long determined which states can access the resources necessary to flourish. Today, even the wealthiest states struggle to tax rich individuals and multinationals. Anti-Black racism has enriched affluent states at the expense of marginalized ones and undermined the taxing power of all nations.

In a compelling narrative interwoven with personal storytelling, Racial Capitalism and International Tax Law: The Story of Global Jim Crow connects Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s metaphor of the "bad check"-representing unfulfilled promises of freedom and equality to Black Americans-to contemporary anti-Black global tax policies. The book uncovers lost connections, such as those between Edwin Seligman, an architect of our global tax system, and the Dunning School, which laid the foundation for Jim Crow laws, and between Stanley Surrey, a Harvard professor and advisor to President John F. Kennedy, and key moments of the Cold War.

Furthermore, it takes a global view and reveals how racial panic triggered by African decolonization allowed an exclusive club of white countries to deliver a second bad check to newly sovereign states like Kenya and Nigeria. By circumventing the inclusive one-country, one-vote system of the United Nations, the OECD and its double tax treaty dismantled the generous arrangements that helped Europe rebuild after both World Wars.

Racial Capitalism and International Tax Law exposes the surprising role anti-Black racism played in shaping an international tax system that benefits billionaires at the expense of billions of people. This eye-opening account challenges readers to rethink the global tax system and its profound impact on racial and economic justice.

Steven A. Dean, Professor of Law and Paul Siskind Research Scholar, Boston University.

Sommaire

Introduction: Tax and the Origins of Global Inequality
Chapter 1:The Perils of Precision
Chapter 2:A Surprising Generosity
Chapter 3:The Rise of Global Jim Crow
Chapter 4:US Power and Global Jim Crow
Chapter 5:Contesting Global Jim Crow
Chapter 6:Global Jim Crow's Pyrrhic Victory
Chapter 7:Beyond Global Jim Crow
Conclusion: Fear of a Black Planet