I am uncertain that a capital tax is the answer. Really, one might want to cultivate programs that make captial investment accessible to anyone; an increase in capital taxes might merely make things unaffordable for sole-proprietors while large conclomerate companies simply pay more taxes without any change in MO.

Clearly, I am not understanding this concept. In my defense, I found the information on the ATTAC quite sparse.

Thanks for the link, though

The Tobin Tax doesn't have to be hard to understand. For example our currencies are being churned so much that transactions involving the trade of one currency for another wildly exceed the volume of global trade upon which a global currency market is supposedly based. Such trade also exceeds the GDP of the entire planet anually. The currency speculator is turning his or her position over rapidly to capture what are small profits on each trade. Therefore a tax on such frivolous and speculative currency trade would greatly diminish the incentive to trade currencies for any other than fundamental reasons i.e. the conduct of internaional trade. For companeis large and small the tax used to put a big chill on currency speculators would hardly be noticed by businesses conducting cross-border trade.

The Tobin Tax would also allow Central Banks to fine tune monetary policy in a more rational manner.

Thank you, Alan. From what you've descibed, the Tobin Tax does seem to be potentially effective.

But, where does that fix in with the ATTAC platform? From what I've read on their site, a loosely defined capital tax is more of a priority.

The Tobin Tax, simply put, was aimed at putting a small tax (1% or 0.5%) on financial transaction (buying and/or selling stock). This would diminish casino-style speculation in the stock market, while generating billions of dollars for redistribution.