Why Have the Rabble not Redistributed the Wealth? On the Stability of Democracy and Unequal Property

Louis Putterman

Chapter 13 in Property Relations, Incentives and Welfare, 1997, pp 359-393 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In economically developed capitalist countries, personal and household wealth are distributed quite unequally.1 At the same time, these countries are marked by democratic forms of government, which allow their citizens to redistribute both income and wealth through various taxes and expenditure programmes.2 The question thus arises as to why the overwhelming majority of citizens, who collectively possess a very modest share of these societies’ stocks of wealth, do not use the political power conferred on them by democratic institutions to distribute more property to themselves.

Keywords: Labour Supply; Median Voter; Household Wealth; Moral Legitimacy; Political Outcome (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-25287-9_13

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