Abstract
The following notes on certain very general aspects of the problems of public finance are not specifically related to the more technical details of our present budgetary position. In so far, however, as the accession to power of a new government [in May 1995] is a moment when the wider implications of policy may be legitimately conceived as due for consideration, they may perhaps be thought to have some practical relevance. That, at any rate, is their intention. I have the feeling that we are apt to take for granted certain tendencies of contemporary financial policy and to dismiss the prospect of any substantial change as impracticable. My main object is to show that this attitude is uncalled for.
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Notes
If any reader, not being a fanatical egalitarian, should think that these sentiments are too sceptical, I should like to draw his attention to a remarkable essay, recently published by two members of the Chicago Law School — The Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation, by Walter J. Blum and Harry Kalven, Jr. (Chicago, 1953). Messrs. Blum and Kalven have no axe to grind: their book is a perfectly dispassionate examination of a case, with no very clear conclusion emerging. But they certainly succeed in showing how extremely superficial has been most of the argument up to date on this extremely important question; and, incidentally, they show, too, how to conduct a very difficult economic and ethical investigation without becoming involved in jargon or obscurity.
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© 1997 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Robbins, L. (1997). Notes on Public Finance. In: Howson, S. (eds) Economic Science and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12761-0_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12761-0_22
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