Tomorrow: Tax Policy Colloquium with Donatella Alessandrini

Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11:35 EST via zoom, the Spiegel Sohmer Tax Policy Colloquium at McGill University continues with a presentation by Donatella Alessandrini, Professor of Law at The University of Kent.

Prof. Alessandrini’s Colloquium talk is entitled “Why feminist engagements with value theory might matter for tax scholars”. Her talk will draw from her prior work on contemporary approaches to conceptual and normative understandings of the production of value in contemporary economies, and in particular her article “Of Value, Measurement, and Social Production.” The work interrogates claims that what creates value in an economy that is dominated by finance and financial innovation is essentially immaterial: “what gives a product, asset or economy its worth has become contingent, devoid of any substance and therefore beyond measure.” In the paper, Prof. Alessandrini asks, “What if, instead, value has always been contingent and yet measures are always instituting it? What resources do we have then to think about our ability to contest value-making processes, such as those brought about by financial markets and innovations, without either invoking the latter’s parasitic nature or being content with merely exposing the contingency of value these instruments reveal?” In the colloquium, Prof. Alessandrini will bring this analysis to the challenges we are currently working out in domestic and international tax spheres, and explore the role that feminist value theory could play in (1) demonstrating how wealth is generated in the global economy including its close relationship to social inequalities; and (2) offering a normative argument for a different allocation of the tax base.

As always, all are welcome to join; please click here to receive the zoom info.