Abstract
Widening social disparities represent a fundamental danger to the viability of civilized societies. They are corrosive of social solidarity and economically dysfunctional. Combatting such disparities should be a primary function of modern democratic states. The task is multi-faceted, however, and not simply confined to the optimal use of state transfers to increase the household income of the poorest sections of society. This chapter focuses, in particular, on the need to reverse the widening of market income disparities typical of the neoliberal era, as well as the priority of guaranteeing sufficient tax revenues for states to eradicate the evils of poverty and social deprivation. This would require an end to tax competition between European and other states, the elimination of tax and regulatory arbitrage by transnational corporations and the restoration of viable systems of progressive income tax in all European countries.
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Notes
- 1.
Adolph Wagner (1835–1917), the German political economist and ‘Kathedersozialist’ (academic socialist) postulated a correlation between the state ratio (the proportion of GDP deployed or channelled through the state) and the level of development of the national economy, determined by the need to fund an increasingly refined infrastructure for promoting technological development and social welfare and addressing economic contingencies.
- 2.
In 1995, Unemployment Benefit was renamed Jobseeker’s Allowance and simultaneously the conditions for the receipt of such benefits were tightened.
- 3.
These Charts include net household income after primary transfers (pensions, job seeker’s allowance, incapacity benefit); they do not include the additional benefits provided by the state to compensate for the specific problems of housing costs.
- 4.
C.f. http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk; beyond the fundamental contradiction of a redistributive expenditure policy committing increasing resources simply to prevent net distribution getting any worse, the development of core poverty, which factors in the real effects of disproportionately high rises in housing costs, indicates unsurprisingly far less success on the part of New Labour with child poverty after housing costs (AHC) falling by a mere 4.8 % points from 33.3 % of all children in 1998–1999 (4.3 million) to 29.1 % (3.8 million) in 2009–2010 (c.f. Cribb et al. 2012, p. 52).
- 5.
Oliver Wendell-Holmes, erstwhile Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, is quoted as having said: ‘I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization’, cited by Government is Good, http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=17
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Leaman, J. (2014). Market Distribution, Fiscal Distribution and Inequality: A Case Study of Britain. In: Eißel, D., Rokicka, E., Leaman, J. (eds) Welfare State at Risk. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01481-4_5
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