Taking a Common Concern Approach to Economic Inequality: Implications for (Cooperative) Sovereignty over Corporate Taxation

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Are countries capable of reducing economic inequality under conditions of contemporary globalisation without cooperating and coordinating with other countries? While states are far from powerless to effect distributional change within their own sovereign space, Taking a Common Concern Approach to Economic Inequality makes the case that cooperation and coordination is indeed necessary, especially in relation to corporate taxation. It accordingly contemplates the utility of a transnational taxation system that is embedded in cooperative sovereignty through the recognition of rising economic inequality and its deleterious effects – including how increasingly unequal distributions within countries make transnational cooperation and coordination efforts less likely – as a common concern of humankind.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements List of Figures Abbreviations 1 General Introduction 2 The Distribution of Income and Wealth within States Since the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Changes and Effects  1 Introduction  2 Changes to the Distribution of Income and Wealth within States Since 1900  2.1 Definitions and Methodologies  2.1.1 Definitions  2.1.2 Methodologies  2.1.3 Clarifications and Critiques  2.2 A (Very) Brief Overview of Distributional Changes within the States Since 1900  2.2.1 North America  2.2.2 East Asia and the Pacific  2.2.3 South Asia  2.2.4 Europe and Central Asia  2.2.5 Sub-saharan Africa  2.2.6 Latin America and the Caribbean  2.2.7 The Middle East and North Africa  2.2.8 Concluding Summary  3 The Effects of Changing Distributions of Income and Wealth within States  3.1 Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction and Mobility  3.2 Climate Change  3.3 Conflict, Violence and Civil War  4 Conclusions 3 Recognising the Distribution of Income and Wealth within States as a Common Concern of Humankind  1 Introduction  2 Economic Sovereignty and the Distribution of Income and Wealth Since ‘Globalization’s Second Unbundling’  2.1 ‘Globalization’s Second Unbundling’ and the Distribution of Income and Wealth within States  2.2 Conceptualising the Distributive Aspects of Contemporary Economic Sovereignty  2.2.1 An Outline of ‘Economic Sovereignty’ and Its Relation to the Provision of Public Goods  2.2.2 Towards a Contemporary Concept of the Distributive Aspects of Economic Sovereignty  3 The Recognition of Common Concerns of Humankind as Sovereignty Redefined  3.1 The Development of the Common Concern of Humankind Concept in International Law  3.2 The (Non-)recognition of a Common Concern of Humankind and Its Legal Implications  3.2.1 The Substance of, Space Covered by, and Location of Common Concerns of Humankind  3.2.2 The Temporal Elements of Common Concerns of Humankind  3.2.3 The (non-)Recognition and Mode of Recognition of Common Concerns of Humankind  3.2.4 The (Potential) Legal Implications of Common Concerns of Humankind: An Overview  3.3 Towards a General Theory for the Recognition of Common Concerns of Humankind in International Law  3.3.1 Framing a Common Concern of Humankind  3.3.2 The Threshold Question: Does State Sovereignty Need Redefinition?  3.3.3 Recognition of the Common Concern of Humankind through a Process of Law  4 Changes in the Distribution of Income and Wealth within States: to Recognise as Common, as Concern or as Common Concern?  4.1 Framing Changes in the Distribution of Income and Wealth within States as a Common Concern of Humankind  4.2 Illustrating That the Distribution of Income and Wealth Requires a Cooperative Conception of Sovereignty  5 Conclusions   Acknowledegments 4 Recognising a Distributional Common Concern in the Area of Corporate Taxation  1 Introduction  2 The Multinational as Global Institution and Use of the Corporate Form  2.1 Multinationals and Power  2.1.1 Instrumental Power  2.1.2 Structural Power  2.1.3 Discursive Power  2.2 Multinationals and Authority  2.3 The ‘Relative Autonomy’ of Multinationals  3 The Multinational as the Most Direct Institutional Actor: The Example of Changing Distributions of Income and Wealth within States  3.1 Multinationals and Within-firm Economic Inequality  3.2 Multinationals and Between-firm Economic Inequality  3.3 The Inseparability of Within-firm Inequality and Between-firm Inequality  3.3.1 Technological-enabled Economic Globalization  3.3.2 Technological Change Per Se  3.3.3 Market Power: Product Market Concentration, Corporate Consolidation, Monopolies and Monopsonies  3.3.4 Executive Compensation  3.3.5 Taxes  4 Parsing State Responsibility in Respect of a Distributional Common Concern into Multinational Action  4.1 To Change or Not to Change the Multinational and Corporations? Framing the Purpose of Corporate Law and Corporations  4.2 Taming the Multinational through Imposing Corporate Responsibility through Cooperative Regulation  5 Taxation of Multinational Firms and the Distribution of Income and Wealth within States  6 Tax Sovereignty as Cooperative Sovereignty  6.1 The Positive Elements of Tax Sovereignty  6.2 The Normative Elements of Tax Sovereignty  7 Recognition of a Distributive Common Concern: Utility and Implications  8 Conclusions 5 Concluding Remarks Bibliography Table of Materials Index