![]() The 2020 victory in Seattle stands as an example of how residents in other cities can win a tax on big businesses today. To win, workers need to build movements independent of the corporate-backed Democratic and Republican parties. Under capitalism, politics typically consists of backroom deals between establishment figures, but these methods cannot win meaningful victories for workers, because the political establishment itself is invested in an economic system that can only survive by exploiting the working class. But in the absence of significant public pressure, the legislation has gone nowhere. In recent years, progressives in Chicago have proposed legislation for a new tax on big businesses. The big business tax was phased out by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his allies in 2014. Instead, it reflected the power of mass movements at the time, and especially the nationwide strike wave by government employees at all levels.īut as labor and social movements weakened in the years that followed, the political establishment became emboldened to roll back the victories of the past. This victory did not come from generosity on the part of the city’s ruling elite. ![]() Lessons From Chicago’s HistoryĬhicago previously implemented a tax on big businesses, the so-called corporate head tax, in 1973, with revenue used partly to fund raises for city employees. The legislation, introduced by 25th Ward Alderman and independent socialist Byron Sigcho-Lopez, would provide at least half a billion dollars every year for affordable housing, education funding, mental health care, and community-based violence prevention. The legislation is inspired by the fighting, movement-based approach spearheaded by Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative which won a similar tax in Seattle in 2020. Socialists in Chicago have introduced an Amazon Tax in the city council which would tax Amazon and other businesses that have fifty or more employees. Big businesses operating in Chicago could easily afford to pay for high-quality affordable housing and other vital public services. Amazon, the largest private employer in the Chicago area, is particularly infamous for driving down wages in the logistics industry, making it that much harder for workers in the city to afford a place to live.īut none of this is inevitable. But in the up-is-down, black-is-white logic of capitalism, booming profits for the real estate industry have come alongside displacement and homelessness for thousands of Chicago residents, as rents and home prices become increasingly unaffordable.īusinesses compound this problem by paying poverty wages and busting unions. The luxury housing market in Chicago was “red hot” last year, with over 60 property sales valued at five million dollars or more. Protesters marched in support of a tax on big business to fund affordable housing, healthcare, community-based public safety. Signs at a community rally, led by Chicago Socialist Alternative and Ald.
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