Fairness as Containment

The OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project turned a global legitimacy crisis into a technocratic consensus. By framing fairness as compliance and procedure, it channelled public anger over corporate tax avoidance into institutional reforms that preserved the existing distribution of power. BEPS functioned as a containment mechanism: it absorbed demands for justice, redirected them into procedural improvements, and stabilised the system it claimed to repair. Despite extensive adoption across more than 140 jurisdictions, corporate tax revenues barely shifted, while inequality continued to grow. The presentation traces how this containment operated through law’s procedural logic, showing how legal success became a political strategy for neutralising redistribution. It concludes by outlining ways to repurpose procedural instruments toward democratic control over capital accumulation.