Raising vs. Leveling in the Social Organization of Welfare
-
Richard E. Wagner
Abstract
This paper contrasts raising and leveling as alternative conceptual frameworks regarding the social organization of welfare. At least since Richard Musgrave’s (1959) tripartite organization of the theory of public finance, most fiscal scholars have treated the redistributive activities of governments as necessarily belonging to the national level of government. More significantly perhaps, that literature has treated the problem of promoting welfare as one of leveling incomes through programs of taxing-and-transferring. In contrast, this paper treats the problem of promoting welfare as one of raising incomes. This alternative formulation leads, in turn, to an alternative orientation toward the relationship between federalism and welfare. In particular, there is good reason to think that genuinely competitive federalism offers a sounder institutional framework for the promotion of raising than can redistribution through a central government, mostly because the knowledge that is required for a program of raising is distributed and incapable of meaningful summarization through aggregation.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Introduction: Ex Uno Plures. Welfare Without Illusion
- Polycentric Polity: Genuine vs. Spurious Federalism
- Fiscal Equity In Federal Systems
- Federalism, Budget Deficits and Public Debt: On the Reform of Germany's Fiscal Constitution
- How Federalism Protects Future Generations from Today's Public Debts
- Raising vs. Leveling in the Social Organization of Welfare
- The Influence of Public Institutions on the Shadow Economy: An Empirical Investigation for OECD Countries
- Fiscal Federalism at the Ballot Box: The Relevance of Expressive Voting
- Federalism as an Effective Antidote to Terrorism
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Introduction: Ex Uno Plures. Welfare Without Illusion
- Polycentric Polity: Genuine vs. Spurious Federalism
- Fiscal Equity In Federal Systems
- Federalism, Budget Deficits and Public Debt: On the Reform of Germany's Fiscal Constitution
- How Federalism Protects Future Generations from Today's Public Debts
- Raising vs. Leveling in the Social Organization of Welfare
- The Influence of Public Institutions on the Shadow Economy: An Empirical Investigation for OECD Countries
- Fiscal Federalism at the Ballot Box: The Relevance of Expressive Voting
- Federalism as an Effective Antidote to Terrorism
