The role of regressive sugar tax in the soft drink industry levy (SDIL): a Marxist analysis

Simmering beneath the bubbles of your regular soft drink are the issues of social class, subjugation, and social injustice. Sugar is a commodity and it is this component when added to soft drinks that now attracts a taxation liability under the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) which was introduced in the UK in April 2018. In this critical taxation article, we argue that the UK’s capitalist state is using the excuse of concern with workers’ health to justify taxing a commodity, which is at best an authoritarian attempt to manage people’s behaviour to make it more conducive to capitalism, but will fail; add to economic inequality and inequity; and is therefore, morally delinquent.