This chapter investigates why countries that share similar levels of taxing and spending for the welfare state vary greatly in the political trouble they generate. It shows that it is the visibility of taxing and spending, not their level, that leads to tax revolts and that different types of political economy differ not only in their structures of taxing and spending but in the policies that increase or decrease inequality. It evaluates the idea that advanced industrialism and its structural and ideological correlates may ultimately make all democracies more vulnerable to tax-welfare...

This chapter investigates why countries that share similar levels of taxing and spending for the welfare state vary greatly in the political trouble they generate. It shows that it is the visibility of taxing and spending, not their level, that leads to tax revolts and that different types of political economy differ not only in their structures of taxing and spending but in the policies that increase or decrease inequality. It evaluates the idea that advanced industrialism and its structural and ideological correlates may ultimately make all democracies more vulnerable to tax-welfare backlash.