MARCH 28 ― Money has three functions; a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. Every Malaysian knows this. Even if they do not formally know it, they know it by intuition.
You are a society of money. Most of your favourite television programmes are driven by money. In fact, many of you even “text-in” to these shows and effectively pay money so that other people can win money. Your major festivities are money intensive ― Eid, Chinese New Year, Christmas etc ― ask any child, they will smile widely at the prospect of annually receiving some cash in a small envelope. Ask any household, and they will get excited at the possibility of new curtains and carpets for the house.
Money does not grow on trees. Perhaps it quite literally does in some states in Malaysia for some select few, but in general, for most of us, it begins with one transaction and ends with another. You do not get money for nothing. You must work for it. It is given to you after a full day’s worth of actual effort. In fact, sometimes, it’s not even given to you at the end of the work day. It is only given to you after completing a full month’s worth of labour. After having to trust that your employers will pay you at the end of the thirtieth day whilst all the while doing something for nothing.
Then, the State steps in. It steps in and takes a portion of that hard earned wage and uses the “positively confiscated” money almost like a trust on your behalf. The taxman can either step in forcefully or you can allow it willingly, that is your choice as well. But we’ve chosen to allow them to do so peacefully. For the good majority of you, this is your life. Every single day you brawl head to head with the question of how much effort must you put in in order to continue to live the life you are living and the one you aspire to lead. In fact some of us have to answer it daily in the earlier hours of the morning while the rest of us are still sleeping. There are others who have to do much more for much less. Money for us is finite. There is no question that it matters how we spend it. After all, my money is mine, and yours is yours.
But why underscore the obvious?
A few months ago, I made it a point to mention that just like everyone else; I am neither a lawyer nor a politician. Today, I am not an economist either. Hence, I am equally exposed, as you are, to this blunt object they joyfully beat us with called “technicality”. It will take us some time to learn the jargons and perhaps even more time to fully appreciate the impact of new socio-economic policies from getting more and more chances to watch how everything applies in real-life. We are told at the moment that everyone else is doing it, so we should too, and naively this places my mind at rest, because like you, I don’t think I want to be taunted with “I told you so” by the market in the future, when everyone else survives an economic catastrophe but we don’t.
It’s obvious, that the new tax structure is meant to be a form of shrewd book-keeping that will keep us some distance from not having enough money to function normally as a country. It is to avoid the undesirable situation that will be brought about from an absence of said commitment. But while we occupy ourselves with mental calculations of how much our next cup of coffee will be, we lose sight of one basic notion ― that there ought to be no taxation without representation! It would, therefore, not be out of place to call for greater social trepidation. The more we ‘spend’ on taxes, the more the tax system it belongs to ought to be ours.
So it ought to follow that; the more we allow ourselves to harvest money from ourselves, the more we ought to be able to have a say in how that money is put to use.
Now, a technocrat will insist that it would be impossible to inform every citizen to have a say in every bit of policy making. But that answer is reductio ad absurdum. We understand this impossibility but despite it, the spirit of the principle must be observed as much as possible. That is to say that while we allow the GST to carry on, we must remember that the burden of taxation doesn’t only lie (pun intended) on our shoulders, but it falls heavier on the shoulders of those collecting it. If a more competent tax structure is the key to surviving the next few decades then it should be a welcomed change. After all, human habits in the economy are often malleable. But the taxman must remember that collection is only half of the work done. If your “deliverables” which we have “purchased” by accepting your policy cannot be “delivered” then there is absolutely no mandate for those collecting, whichever politics these people may belong to, to continue to collect ― for you collect only as long as you can deliver. After all, money simply forcefully taken with no benefits in sight for the victim is robbery.
Yes, a cup of coffee now is a ringgit more than before, and yes, there will be many households that will struggle to re-balance their books to stay in the black. But it also means that our expectations and our standards can be placed higher than before. We ought to no longer feel guilty about wanting a free and fair election, about wanting less gangrene-like social stratification when it comes to any kind of access, about wanting a respectable and reputable crowd warming our seats in parliament or about thinking that next time a flood hits any of our houses; it will be people first before politics. We never should have had to feel guilty at all for expecting in the first place. In fact, the system should work in such a manner that if you dislike the way the new policy is impacting you, you ought to be able to repeal it swiftly and intelligently.
Taxation must be understood in aggregate. Just because it is set up unfavourably for one person, it doesn’t negate the entirety of the benefits which it accrues to a number greater than one. But taxation is also about having the actual ability to influence decision making through proper representation. It would be easy, but not to mention very dry, if at this point we segued into talking about the Boston Tea Party, and the Tea Act, so I won’t. But it would be dishonest and dim to ignore that 242 years have passed and we still need to remind ourselves of something breathtakingly simple ― that there ought to be no taxation, without representation. What anyone in Putrajaya does, and I mean anyone, from any party ― what anyone does in Putrajaya must be things which on aggregate are beneficial not just for Putrajaya. Now, ask yourselves, can we confidently say that Malaysia has enough “representation” to make the case that the system has representation in the relevant sense; enough for the taxation it is instituting? From here on out, shouldn’t we wake up tomorrow with greater social trepidation? It’s perhaps time to put our money where our mouth is.
*Meor Alif is pursuing a PhD in Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He tweets at @thisiconoclast
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/gst-greater-social-trepidation-meor-alif#sthash.3clsdIsT.dpuf