a post by Jens Beckert and Matias Dewey for the OUP [Oxford University Press] blog
In early November 2017, media outlets hailed the Paradise Papers as a major scoop: 13.4 million leaked documents revealed the financial details of some of the world’s leading brands, politicians, sports stars, and musicians. But this was to be no repeat of last year’s Panama Papers, in which well-known names appeared relating to criminal acts like “corruption,” “tax evasion,” and “money laundering”; the Paradise Papers failed to reveal a single crime.
So why was it considered news?
The general public’s views of “right” and “wrong” are on this and many other occasions at odds with lawful definitions of “legal” and “illegal.” While the latter express a state’s interests in sanctioning certain exchanges or behaviours (i.e., are an expression of power and an attempt to manufacture a specific type of social order), the former are social beliefs about the legitimacy of certain acts, which may or may not coincide with the legal definitions.
Bono buying a stake in a Lithuanian shopping mall, or Lewis Hamilton importing his private jet to the Isle of Man might be perfectly legal, but the general public does not accept it as moral or legitimate. These are extraordinarily wealthy people who, with the help of tax advisers, avoid their public duty of contributing the same rate as lower earners to the common pot.
When a private estate acting for the Queen invests in offshore private equity funds, operating in infamous tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, it appears that she is maximizing financial gains by using a service closed to, and at the expense of, the majority of her own subjects.
Continue reading including several links to further information
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