Political-economic aspects of taxing capitalistic bequests

Abstract

In modern democracies generally the principle of one man – one vote holds. Whereas the right to vote is distributed equally within society, income and especially wealth are not, such that the median voter falls short of the average. Under these circumstances one might suppose the majority of voters to impose a tax system which redistributes all income and wealth to the mean. Following Robin Hood “Rob the rich – Give to the poor.” the winning coalition of the poorest fifty percent could theoretically make all its members better off by confiscatory taxation. But, having a closer look at most democracies the question arises why, nonetheless, such great wealth inequality still exists.