The Old and the New Politics of Taxation

Abstract

A major tenet of neo-conservative thinking holds that the Structure of democratic politics leads invariably to a tendency for the state to grow and thus for expenditure and taxes to increase. They argue that because the benefits of social programmes are highly concentrated on specific interest groups, there is a powerful incentive for such groups to engage in political lobbying and to exchange promises of electoral support for benefits. Because the costs of programmes and privileges are dispersed by means of taxation over the entire population, there is little reason for legislators to resist such sectional claims. Together these complementary incentive structures result in a steady growth of the state.