As readers know, I believe that a sustainable democracy requires tax and fiscal policies that pay attention to the institutions of democracy andd the ability of the nation's citizens, to participate with equal respect and opportunity, in the economic, social and cultural life of the nation. Poverty is an immediate barrier to that goal, and tax is a means of changing that barrier. Accordingly, tax policy rests on a fundamental distributive justice principle that I have called "democratic egalitarianism."
In that vein, here's an interesting discussion of poverty in Haiti on a fellow progressive's blog, sustainablemiddleclass, back in early February, A Durable Indifference Toward Poverty. just a few exerpts for a taste of the posting:
There is no good reason for Haitians to starve. The problem is extreme inequality of wealth and income on the island. The economy is controlled by a well-guarded elite. ......
The Gini Coefficient, which is an economic metric between zero and one used to describe income and wealth distribution, is 0.65 for Haiti - one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere. The higher the number, the greater the inequality. The Gini Coefficient is 0.54 in Mexico, 0.47 in the United States, 0.33 in Canada, and 0.25 in Sweden. ......
Anyone bothered by illegal immigration should be interested in ending poverty.
Any business trying to expand its market should be interested in ending poverty.
Anyone living in a precarious financial situation should be interested in ending poverty.
To which only can be said--how true. So, do the politicians who are wise enough to realize the importance of egalitarian distribution of resources actually take steps to help that policy along in office? Dani Rodrik, a Harvard economist, has some interesting things to say about that issue on his weblog (named, epynomously, Dani Rodrik's Weblog) today. Here's an excerpt, describing data in Larry Bartel's new book Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Princeton Univ. Press).
.......When a Republican president is in power, people at the top of the income distribution experience much larger real income gains than those at the bottom--a difference of 1.5 percent per year going from the bottom to the top quintile in the income distribution. The situation is reversed when a Democrat is in power: those who benefit the most are the lower income groups. If you are in the bottom quintile, the difference between having a Democratic or a Republican president in office is an income gain (or loss) of more than 2 percent per year! Strikingly, compared to Republicans, Democratic presidents generate higher income gains for all income groups (although the difference is statistically significant only for lower income groups).
Bartels shows in his book that this difference is not a statistical artifact or a fluke. ... These numbers ... are the outcome of partisan differences in policy. So if you are one of those who have bought the story that income distribution is the result of pure market forces and technological changes, with politics playing no role--think again.
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