The U.S. Welfare State and the Working Class,1952-1980

Abstract

The main focus of this study is the role of the state in the distribution process vis-a-vis the working class in the United States during the period 1952-1980. This focus led me to formulate and then answer a question: what is the net impact of the distributive activities of the state on the wages of the working class as a whole and various segments within it? In order to deal with this question I proposed a concept, net-tax, which is taxes paid to the state minus benefits and income received from it. The empirical findings of the article concerning the net-tax paid by labor led me to call into question the economically beneficial role of the welfare state in relation to the wages of the working class.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bowles, Sam and Herbert Gintis . 1982. The Crisis of Liberal Democratic Capitalism: The Case of the United States. Politics and Society 11(l): 51-93.

BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis) . 1981. The National Income and Product Accounts of the United States, 1929-1976; Statistical Tables (NIPA). Washington, D.C.

Fazeli, Rafat. 1984. Transfers Between the State and the Working Class: The Case of the U.K. Unpublished Ph.D. Research Paper. Department of Economics, Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research.

Hyman, David N. 1983. Public Finance: A Contemporary Application of Theory to Policy. Chicago: The Dryden Press.

Kahn, Harry C. 1968. Employee Compensation Under the Income Tax. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lewin, Cynthia M. 1979. Functional Classification of Federal and State and Local Governments Expenditures. Unpublished memorandum. Washington, D.C.

Marx, Karl . 1963. Theories of Surplus-Value, Part I. Moscow Progress Publishers.

Marx, Karl . 1977a. Capital, Vol I. New York: Random House, Inc.

Marx, Karl . 1977b. Critique of the Gotha Programme. In, Karl Marx: Selected Writings, D. McLellan (ed.). London: Oxford University Press.

10.

Marx, Karl . 1981. Capital, Vol. II. New York: Random House.

11.

Musgrave, R. A. , K. E. Case , and H. Leonard . 1974. The Distribution of Fiscal Burdens and Benefits. Public Finance Quarterly, 2: 259-311.

12.

Musgrave, R. A. and P. B. Musgrave . 1980. Public Finance in Theory and Practice. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

13.

Pechman, Joseph . 1966. Federal Tax Policy. Washington: Brookings Institution.

14.

Sazama, Jerry . n.d. The Tax System and the Tax Revolt. In, Crisis in the Public Sector. Economics Education Project of URPE. New York: Monthly Review Press.

15.

Shaikh, Anwar. 1980a. Marxian Categories and National Income Accounts. Unpublished paper.

16.

Shaikh, Anwar. 1980b. Towards a Critique of Keynesian Theory of the Role of the State. Unpublished paper.

17.

Smith, Dan Throop . 1982. Taxation: An Overview. In, Encyclopedia of Economics. D. Greenwald (ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

18.

Tonak, E. Ahmet. 1984. A Conceptualization of State Revenues and Expenditures: U.S., 1952- 1980. Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Economics, New School for Social Research.

19.

Tonak, E. Ahmet and A. Shaikh . n.d. The Welfare State and the Myth of Social Wage. In, Macroeconomics: Left Perspectives, Union of Radical Political Economics (ed.). Salt Lake City, UT: URPE.