Consumer society, taxation and decoloniality

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this article is to discuss taxation on consumption, especially in Brazil, as being regressive and indirect, historically exclusive. Taxation has been established worldwide on consumption, and this is not just a feature of the Brazilian system. Consumption is the basis of modern society, global and divided between central and periphery countries. Taxation, in turn, an apparatus of modern society, contributes to the displacement of the subject as a commodity, making consumption-income the objective and abstract measure of verification of contributory capacity, leading to the illusory understanding of an isonomy of opportunities.

Methodology: The method used in the study is deductive and bibliographical-documentary research, with a qualitative approach.

Results: As a result, we observe that we are facing a naturalized process of economy that crosses the tax system with regressive references and widens the gap that separates the periphery from the center. In Brazil, taxation has always been indirect, on production, imports and consumption. Alongside taxation, in a consumer society, inflation, or “inflationary tax”, is also a social fact, as it allows governments to profit from monetary expansion and the reduction of household purchasing power, privileging certain social actors. to the detriment of the masses, in the consumer society.

Conclusions: Therefore, conclusively, we can see that the sustainable development of peripheral countries is not, or should not be, in open competition for an equivalent condition to the central countries, this being the starting point for a sustainable conception of society and, therefore, as a result of a fair tax system. This article aims to raise these hypotheses and theses.