UN RENOUVEAU DE LA PARTICIPATION ASSOCIATIVE ? L'engagement et le militantisme au sein du comité Attac Isère

2.2 A precise but total engagement

2.2.1 To fight against the speculation

The Attac acronym, Association for the Tax on the financial Transactions and the Assistance with the Citizens, indicate the first claim on which was based association. The term of transaction is broad but it returns, initially, with the financial transactions, i.e. those which take place on the foreign exchange market. We already evoked the context in which Ramonet proposed the installation of this tax. It was about a very strong economic recession concerning the South-East Asia in 1997, and more particularly Indonesia and Thailand. Their financial and banking systems broke down and the responsibility was allotted to the globalisation and the deregulation for the financial and monetary transactions.^193(*) Ramonet specifies that «the tax on the financial incomes is a minimal democratic requirement. These incomes should be taxed exactly at the same rate as the labor incomes [...] This is why it is important to install dissuasive mechanisms»^194(*). In order to «disarm the markets », it proposes a tax called «Tobin», name of its founder, that Ci being among the possible mechanisms only «one of them».

2.2.1.1 The tax formulated by James Tobin

James Tobin is an American economist, graduate of the university of Harvard and professor at the university of Yale. He obtained the Nobel Prize of economy in 1981 for his financial market researches^195(*). He is considered in the circles of the economists convinced Keynésien and one « anti-Friedman »^196(*). He was the economic adviser of J.F.Kennedy at the beginning of the Sixties and one savage opposing to the economic policy of president Reagan. It is in 1978 that it published the most known article proposing the establishment of a tax on the currency exchange transactions. However its first intervention goes back to 1972, that is to say little of time after abrogation, in August 1971, of the system of rate of fixed exchange, created at the time of the treaty of Bretton Woods in 1944^197(*). The fixed system of exchange, a mode succeeded «floating rates » in which the value of the currencies depends on the play of the market and the strategies adopted by the speakers who are present there. This modification opened the door with the speculation^198(*) on the foreign exchange market.

It is to answer this threat, which represented an important factor of instability within the international monetary system, that Tobin proposed to take a tax on all the private exchange transactions. This tax would be about 0, 1% of the gross value of the transaction, thus making it possible to tax the short-term placements (less than one week) without penalizing the investments which would be made in the long run. It would thus make it possible to make the distinction between the speculative transfers and the not-speculative transfers. The tax would be collected in the country where the transaction is concluded and would require a co-operation between the States which would be possible according to him through the International Monetary organization of the International Monetary Funds set up during the agreements of Bretton Woods. It is a question for him of reducing the speculative activity by penalizing it and thus to limit the volatility of the transactions. The market would be found some restricted with the only exchange transactions necessary to the investment.

The objectives by James Tobin and the economists who supported his proposal are to return to the national monetary policies the autonomy which they lost vis-a-vis the financial markets^199(*). Indeed, in a mode of floating exchange, the tendency to the standardization of the rates on the whole of the markets is very strong, which makes difficult the development of a monetary policy autonomous for the States^200(*). Thanks to the Tobin tax, it would be less necessary to use the interest rates to defend the rate of exchange because the transactions would not be carried out on the basis of speculative profit and the monetary policy of determination of the interest rates could be more easily put at the service of the investment^201(*). The second consequence of the tax would consist of the creation of a form of capital tax which would be uniform universally. The product of this tax could be used for the development aid. However, it was not the principal goal pursued by Tobin. When the idea of a sales tax monetarist with an aim « social » reappeared, Tobin reaffirmed that it was not about its finality^202(*).

* ¹⁹³ At the time of an international seminar devoted to the Tobin Tax, it was agreed in connection with the economic crises of 1997 that  «  the mode of globalized finance, born from the liberalization and the deregulation of flows of capital, takes a responsibility crushing in the advent for this state of affairs  ». Attac France, «  Why the Tobin tax  », text adopted by the international seminar economists brought together by Attac, which was held at the house from the Latin America in Paris, 25/01/1999 in All on Attac, p. 73.

* ¹⁹⁴ Ramonet (Igniacio), «To disarm the markets  », op.cit, appendix n°10, p. 26.

* ¹⁹⁵ One can specify that as opposed to what one could think, it is not for his proposal for a tax that James Tobin A accepted the Nobel Prize of economy in 1981 but for his work on the composition of the door sheets of the speculative funds. The fact that Tobin is Nobel of economy is present at the time of each presentation of the tax which association publishes. That testifies, according to us, of an attempt at crédibiliser the idea of the tax by the reputation of its author. Cf, Sahuc (Michel), «  The Tobin tax  : palliative care of capitalism  », The libertarian World, 17/- 23/12/1998.

* ¹⁹⁶ François Chesnais notes besides that the proposal of Tobin is very largely inspired by an idea formulated by Keynes into 1936 in connection with the stock exchange markets  : «  The creation of a heavy tax of State striking all the transactions would appear perhaps most salutary of measurements making it possible to attenuate in EtatsUnis- the prevalence of the speculation on the company.  » Keynes, the general theory of employment, the interest, the currency, Chapter 12 in François Chesnais, Tobin gold not Tobin. An international tax on the capital, Paris, Spirit-rapper, 1998, p. 59.

* ¹⁹⁷ An international conference was taken place in EtatsUnis-, in Bretton Woods in 1944 in which the participants agreed on the creation of a monetary system whose objective was to overcome monetary and financial instability chronic years 1920 and 1930. The angular stone of this system was the convertibility of the gold dollar ata fixed rate, the rate of exchange of the other currencies being determined in their turn by reference to the dollar. This system ended at the beginning of the Seventies. The deficit growing of the American budget caused a strong speculative push on gold in 1971, forcing the American federal authorities to put an end to the convertibility of the dollar out of gold. Monetary stability taken end and the principal industrialized countries made «  to float  » their currency. The rate of exchange with respect to the other currencies from now on was fixed by the play of supply and. The rates are reflected to vary the ones compared to the others in an important way and it became possible to speculate by carrying out transactions in a short lapse of time. Ibid, p. 19.

* ¹⁹⁸ Nicolas Kaldor, disciple direct of Keynes, defined the speculation as a «operation nonrelated to the advantage holding with the use of a good or an unspecified transformation.  » Ibid, p. 25

* ¹⁹⁹ Tobin stresses that «  what it is necessary to specify for a country, it is the possibility of having a minimum of independent national monetary policy. Here what interests me  ». The World, 17/11/1998.

* ²⁰⁰ Cf, Chesnais (François), op.cit, p. 25.

* ²⁰¹ François Chesnais, member of the scientific Council of Attac, observes that «When he formulated his proposal in 1972, James Tobin wanted to preserve it  «real economy  » of the interference of finance and to preserve the autonomy of the governments as regards macro-economic policy [...] The concern for Tobin was to prevent that the markets of currencies become one of the arenas of the speculation  ». Faujas (Alain), «misadventures of the Tobin tax or how to calm the speculation  financial?  », The World, Supplement the World Economy, 1/09/1998, p. 6.

* ²⁰² During an interview, it declared  : «  To tell the truth, in Europe, one was often mistaken on the direction in my tax. It was thought that I wanted to tax the movements of capital to release from the resources which would go to an international organization like UNO, which would put them at the service of the development or L  `environment. It was not at all my priority  ». The World, 17/11/1998.