No progressive taxation without discrimination? On the generality of the law in the classical liberal tradition

Åsbjørn Melkevik ()
Additional contact information
Åsbjørn Melkevik: Queen’s University

Constitutional Political Economy, 2016, vol. 27, issue 4, No 4, 418-434

Abstract: Abstract Any liberal theory that would take seriously the question of equality before the law is bound to engage with discrimination-related matters, and so long as one is a liberal one should oppose all discrimination coming from the state. This, however, may be a double-edged sword since many classical liberals have quite readily opposed progressive taxation by invoking its discriminatory nature. Some liberals will therefore conclude that one cannot establish different tax brackets, lest taxation be illiberal. This paper endeavours to refute this assumption. Progression may be compatible with the classical liberal concern for the rule of law, provided legislative discretion on tax-related matters is duly limited by the principle of generality, as well as by a certain standard of reasonable lawmaking. Through a careful distinction between four concepts of differential treatment, this paper demonstrates that progressive tax arrangements do not necessarily discriminate against the well-off, and that it can efficiently fulfill some legitimate classical liberals objectives.

Keywords: Classical liberalism; Discrimination; Generality of the law; Hayek; Progressive taxation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 K34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10602-016-9222-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:copoec:v:27:y:2016:i:4:d:10.1007_s10602-016-9222-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/10602/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10602-016-9222-x

Access Statistics for this article

Constitutional Political Economy is currently edited by Roger Congleton and Stefan Voigt

More articles in Constitutional Political Economy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().