Saturday, February 20, 2021

You could look it up, part 3

 My last couple of posts have argued that popular support for activist government didn't decline with the rise of the civil rights movement--if anything, it's somewhat higher today than it was in the 1950s.  So what is my explanation for what Heather McGhee called "the end of America’s high-tax, high-investment growth strategy"?  I don't have one, because it didn't happen.  Government spending and taxes as a percentage of GDP have grown since the 1960s (this is a convenient chart for spending and this is one for tax revenue). McGhee says that "tax revenue peaked as a percentage of the economy in 1969 compared with the average O.E.C.D. country," which may be true (although the NY Times story didn't include a link to the source for that either).  However, that's not because taxes have gone down in the US, but because they've gone up faster in other OECD nations.  

This piece illustrates a view that's popular on the American left--that the only reason that Americans don't support an extensive welfare state is racial animosity.  Although that's almost certainly a factor, it's not the whole story.  In 2012, I had a post comparing opinions about redistribution in thirty-eight nations.  New Zealand was least favorable, the US was third least, Britain was fourth, and Australia was sixth.  That is, it's not the United States that is distinctive, but Britain and nations that were settled from Britain.  (Canada wasn't included in the survey).  That is, there seems to be some lasting cultural difference in nations with a British heritage. 

 

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