Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British, and American Approaches to Financing the Modern StateTaxation 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
Common Paths Divergent Patterns | 14 |
The Emergence of Modern Taxation 18001920 | 50 |
The Historic Compromise 19181945 | 80 |
Postwar Tax PolicyMore Revenue Gain Less Political Pain | 120 |
Taxation in a Global Economy | 156 |
Taxes Democracy and the Welfare State | 193 |
Notes | 211 |
| 237 | |
| 269 | |
Common terms and phrases
administration argued bill bourgeois Britain British tax system budget capital capitalist chancellor changes citizens classes coalition Committee compromise Congress Conservative constitutional consumption taxes context corporate tax decade decisions demands democracy developed economic effective tax election electoral elites example favor federal finance government's Heclo Historic Compromise incentives income tax rates increased individual industry interest groups introduced investment Labour party legislative Liberal major marginal tax rates ment million minister nomic OECD Parliament People's Budget percent Percentage personal income tax political institutions poll tax postwar profits tax programs progressive tax proportional representation proposal radical redistributive reduced Republicans Riksdag sales tax Social Democrats Socialists specific spending structure Sweden Swedish politics Swedish tax Table tax burden tax code tax cuts tax expenditures tax policy tax policymakers tax reform tax revenues taxation Tories Total Tax Treasury United Kingdom Upper Chamber vote wartime wealth Wigforss