The State and the Distribution and Redistribution of Income

Abstract

The opportunities for white collar and skilled manual work fostered by economic growth were far more secure, well-paid and satisfying than those which change had displaced. Prosperity brought an improved standard of living to the fortunate occupants of positions in the State bureaucracy, manufacturing industry and the services. At the same time, the zeal with which politicians and the public embraced the idea of a Welfare State ensured that those excluded from direct market participation also experienced a substantial rise in their real incomes and thus their standard of living. This chapter scrutinises the distribution of the various forms of income available in Ireland over the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on the role of the State in channelling that distribution throughout the class structure. Giddens (1973, p. 149) argues that ‘what appears to be generic to capitalism is a stable disparity between the economic returns accruing to the major classes’. We begin our examination of class income differentials by noting some factors that potentially limit the applicability of Giddens’s generalisation to the recent Irish experience.