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Remarkable: Unilever is about to scrap its relocation plans if NL's "exit tax" becomes reality. This will not only have implications for NL, but gives a glimpse into how governments change their approach to corporate power in a post-neoliberal world (1) https://www.ft.com/content/d5e84695-5f9b-498a-bb05-ba1a080a9b0f
2 years ago, prime minister Rutte risked a lot when he almost single-handedly tried to abolish the Dutch dividend tax, which would have benefited mainly foreign shareholders of MNCS and would have costed the Dutch taxpayer about 2 bn Euros annually
https://www.ad.nl/politiek/einde-dividendbelasting-wordt-nog-duurder~a06257b1/ (2)
https://www.ad.nl/politiek/einde-dividendbelasting-wordt-nog-duurder~a06257b1/ (2)
Rutte's argument was straight from the FDI competition playbook: if we don't give MNCs a reason to stay (i.e. tax incentives), they will shift their well-paid jobs to other (low-tax) countries. This was heavily criticized by parliament and the public: (3)
a curious shareholder revolt in 2018 finally brought an end to Unilever's plans of moving to Rotterdam, which also meant the end for Rutte's abolishment plans: https://www.wsj.com/articles/unilever-drops-plan-to-consolidate-in-netherlands-amid-shareholder-revolt-1538721175 (4)
the 2018 episode could have been interpreted as defeat by accident for Unilever/Rutte. But there was already ample of political resistance against the idea of the government openly catering to the needs of big business. This change is manifest in today's developments. (5)
the initiative by @bartsnels to make Unilever pay or stay is an important signal viz. large MNCs and their relation to state/government power: there is now a credible alternative to the idea that policy making cannot be more than a race to the bottom to attract capital. (6)
the possible end of a reduction of government policies to global "competitiveness" does however not mean that competition for FDI will stop. It might just not be the only game in town in a post-neoliberal world. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2020.1737564 @ArjanReurink @javiergb_com (7)
the signalling effect of the initiative and Unilever's announcement is thus bigger if we take the larger context into account. Within two years, we could go from "please stay, here you have € 2bn" to "if you exit, you will pay us € 11bn.". This could be a sea change. (8)
time will tell whether this analysis holds true beyond this one case. But it plays into a larger trend of reasserting state power in a post-neoliberal global political economy. See e.g. https://academic.oup.com/jiel/article/22/4/655/5637576 by @AntheaERoberts (9).
(new related research w. @JoukeHuijzer on the broader context of this hopefully coming out soon(ish)) (end)
