Taxation and Democracy / Sven Steinmo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steinmo, Sven, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Taxation--Sweden.

Taxation.

Taxation--Great Britain.

Taxation--United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2004]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Taxation and Democracy is the first book to examine the structure, politics, and historic development of taxation policies in several countries. Comparing three quite different political democracies--Sweden, Britain, and the United States--the book provides a powerful account of the ways these democracies have managed to finance their welfare programs despite widespread public resistance to taxes. Sven Steinmo argues that the different political structures of these countries produce varying tax systems and, by extension, differing social policy regimes.According to Steinmo, all democracies face a basic dilemma--how government can be both autonomous and responsive to public wishes. This dilemma is a crucial factor in explaining their different tax systems. In the United States, for example, the system of multiple checks and balances and fragmented political authority has led to a tax system that is complex, inefficient, and has a low revenue yield. Sweden's corporatist model of government is less responsive to the will of the masses, and so the country has a surprisingly regressive tax system that is stable, efficient, and has a high revenue yield: its working class basically agrees to accept a heavy tax burden in exchange for heavy social welfare spending. The British government, which is dominated by strong parties, can virtually dictate tax policy preferences to the Parliament, and so its tax system is highly unstable, as is the distribution of tax burdens among classes. Steinmo demonstrates that the "New Institutionalism" can account for both historic continuities and political change--that common economic and political forces confronting these countries in the twentieth century were shaped by each country's changing political institutions. His study thus makes an important contribution to comparative political theory as well as to our understanding of the development of the modern welfare state.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Figures

Tables

Preface

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. Common Paths-Divergent Patterns

3. The Emergence of Modern Taxation, 1800-1920

4. The Historic Compromise, 1918-1945

5. Postwar Tax Policy- More Revenue Gain, Less Political Pain

6. Rethinking Modern Taxation: Taxation in a Global Economy

7. Taxes, Democracy, and the Welfare State

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780300160505

030016050X

OCLC:

1059276381