Clemens Sedmak

Differentiating Views of Inheritance: The Free Association Task as a Method to Assess Social Representations of Wealth, Inherit, and Bequeath

Inheritance and in particular inheritance taxes have emerged as topics of steadily increasing interest in public as well as scientific discourse and debate. The present study investigates laypeople’s differentiated social representations of inheritance with the aim of shedding light on distinct concepts of wealth, inherit, and bequeath. Furthermore, it comparatively discusses experts’ scientific discourse on inheritance and laypeople’s social representations of inheritance, with the aim to contribute to a clearer understanding of the roots of the conflictual dispute on inheritance tax. Overall, 75 Austrian taxpayers completed a free association task. Participants were asked to indicate their spontaneous associations with the stimuli wealth, inherit, and bequeath, and to evaluate their associations as positive, neutral, or negative. Polarity and neutrality indices were calculated to capture participants’ attitudes towards the stimuli. Lexicographical analyses as well as correspondence analyses were performed to map the social representations of the stimuli. The results show that the evaluations of the stimuli differ significantly. Furthermore, the semantic content of the social representations differs. Moreover, the comparative discussion of experts’ representations of inheritance, as revealed in the analyses of their scientific discourse, and laypeople’s social representations of inheritance shows that the core issues of the social representations of laypeople and the representations of experts differ not only in respect to their level of abstractness but also in their point of reference and in their content. Interestingly, taxation is a core issue for laypeople as well as experts. Hence, this study indicates that a differentiated use of the term inheritance is necessary in regard to reforms of legal regulations of inheritance and inheritance taxes as well as in research referring to inheritance.

Outlining the Field of Tax Justice

Taxation is one of the most fundamental and influential institutions in all modern societies. This importance of taxation gives rise to crucial normative, ethical, and moral questions—and assumptions about what is just and morally right are closely tied to the discussion, design and implementation of taxation and certain taxes. For that reason a normative examination of taxation, focusing on issues of justice, is of utmost importance. Tax justice is located in the interstices between the traditional tax disciplines of tax law, public finance, and microeconomics and it is connected to approaches from philosophy and some social sciences. It is clearly an inherently interdisciplinary topic. In order to arrive at a sufficiently coherent and defensible set of concepts within the field of tax justice, we propose to clarify at least four key concepts: (i) state, (ii) citizenship, (iii) property, and (iv) social justice.

Fiscal Justice and Justified Trust

In the following essay we are particularly interested in the relationship between formal (legal, political) frameworks and informal networks. There seems to be a culture of suspicion vis-a-vis the former and a culture of trust regarding the latter. This asymmetry in the readiness to trust leads to a way of thinking that supports the idea: “the lower the tax burden, the better”. On the other hand, the idea of a fiscal contract is based on an idea of mutual trust (tax authorities trusting the tax payers, i.e. through limited controls, tax payers trust the tax authorities in terms of tax fairness and the appropriate use of the fiscal income). The thesis we will develop here has three elements: (1) Formal frameworks (F) and informal networks (N) are interdependent and mutually linked; trust in F implies trust in N and vice versa. Social networks operate within structural frameworks and need “institutional framework trust” or “trust in systems” in order to be able to flourish. (2) The generation of income and wealth is based on trust—people need social capital and networks as well as legal and political frameworks and public infrastructure in order to generate incomes, in other words: non-communal money or capital independent of structure does not exist. (3) On the basis of this culture of trust as the centre of wealth-generation and common-good tax justice, justified trust can be linked via an “ability to trust” principle and a “responsibility to trust” principle.

Erbschaftssteuer im Fokus. Zur Einleitung

Kaum jemand wird die Notwedigkeit von Steuern bestreiten, sind sie doch die wichtigste Einkommensquelle moderner Staaten, ohne welche diese ihre Ausgaben nicht finanzieren konnten (Blankart 2008; Andersson/Oxelheim/Eberhartinger 2010). Ohne Steuern ist ein Funktionieren des kulturellen, wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und politischen Lebens in einer modernen Gesellschaft nicht denkbar (Schmid 2006).

Ethical Issues in Poverty Alleviation

In today’s world, national borders seem irrelevant when it comes to international crime and terrorism. Likewise, human rights, poverty, inequality, democracy, development, trade, bioethics, hunger, war and peace are all issues of global rather than national justice. The fact that mass demonstrations are organized whenever the world’s governments and politicians gather to discuss such major international issues is testimony to a widespread appeal for justice around the world. Discussions of global justice are not limited to the fields of political philosophy and political theory. In fact, research concerning global justice quite often requires an interdisciplinary approach. It involves aspects of ethics, law, human rights, international relations, sociology, economics, public health, and ecology. Studies in Global Justice takes up that interdisciplinary perspective. The series brings together outstanding monographs and anthologies that deal with both basic normative theorizing and its institutional applications. The volumes in the series discuss such aspects of global justice as the scope of social justice, the moral significance of borders, global inequality and poverty, the justification and content of human rights, the aims and methods of development, global environmental justice, global bioethics, the global institutional order and the justice of intervention and war. Volumes in this series will prove of great relevance to researchers, educators and students, as well as politicians, policymakers and government officials.

Ethical Issues in Poverty Alleviation: Agents, Institutions and Policies

In this chapter we introduce the topics of this volume. We start by distinguishing and discussing three issues that are of importance for an ethical reflection on poverty alleviation: the definitions of poverty and poverty alleviation, the normative background theories of poverty alleviation and the identification of the agents and institutions of poverty alleviation. After discussing these we will go on to present a brief overview of the chapters in this volume.

Poverty Alleviation: An Opportunity for Universities

How can universities promote a preferential “option of the poor”? In my chapter I will articulate three dimensions and show how they are connected with issues of identity: education, positioning, transformation. (i) Education is the central idea of a university. Education can strengthen the abilities to deal with difficult situations, like poverty. In fact, the university has the opportunity and the responsibility to cultivate such resources. According to Martha Nussbaum a university should promote the ability to lead an “examined life”. It should promote the ability to think in terms of common humanity and the ability to narrative imagination, such as the use of myths, symbols, narratives and poetry. In this way education helps to cultivate a sense of belonging that is not contingent of social groups (humanity), a sense of detachment from external circumstances (“examined life”) and a sense of interiority and orientation beyond material values (narrative imagination). (ii) Universities can contribute to an “option for the poor” by taking up positions. There are at least four important dimensions: First, the university recognizes academic freedom. Universities are free to address the situation of people experiencing poverty and poverty alleviation, e.g. in lectures. Second, the university knows freedom of research. Hence also research can contribute to a deeper understanding of poverty and the development of social innovation and poverty reduction efforts. Third, universities build communities of teachers and students, networks within the scientific community. Granting access to such networks for socially disadvantaged students or teachers or collaboration between the University and poverty stricken persons can express an “option for the poor”. Fourth, the University has political weight and can take up positions in the sense of Ignacio Ellacurias considerations on the political role of universities. (iii) Finally, such a positioning and consequent involvement offers opportunities for transformation. Transformation is in fact the basic idea behind the Christian understanding of an “option for the poor”. It is about to be touched by the mystery of poverty. It is about to develop real friendships with people experiencing poverty. Such encounter opens the scope for a transformation that converts people’s interiority. This may just be possible within a university.

Fairness, Steuerethik und Armutsbekämpfung

Dieser Beitrag verteidigt die Uberzeugung, dass ein substantieller Begriff von Steuerethik das Gesamtphanomen der Verteilung von wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Vorteilen in einer Gesellschaft im Auge haben muss. Solche Auffassungen und Konzepte von Steuergerechtigkeit, die sich auf einen eingeschrankteren Begriff von Steuern beziehen, bleiben notwendigerweise auf eine (z. B. steuerwissenschaftliche) Binnenperspektive beschrankt, die weder – so die hier vertretene Auffassung – dem Begriff der sozialen Gerechtigkeit gerecht werden noch der starken Versuchung eine systematische Grenze setzen, Steuerfragen aus einer, der eigenen soziookonomischen und/oder ideologischen Position verhafteten Perspektive zu beurteilen.

Armut und Wissen: Ein akademisches Joint Venture zur Kritik der Reproduktion und zur Linderung von Armut in Schule und Wissenschaft

In Diskursen, die einen Zusammenhang zwischen Armut und Wissen herstellen oder ihn begrunden, schwingt mitunter die Vorstellung einer umgekehrten Proportionalitat der beiden Begriffe mit: arm ist, wer uber (zu) wenig Wissen verfugt, um am Arbeitsmarkt – und damit in vielen weiteren gesellschaftlichen Bereichen – erfolgreich bestehen zu konnen. Wissen uber Armut findet im Nachdenken des oder der Einzelnen wie in der massenmedialen Vermittlung oder Diskussionen am Stammtisch in der Regel ohne das Wissen von in Armut lebenden Personen statt.

Einleitung: Probleme von Inklusion, Identifikation und Integration im europäischen Sozialraum

Was bedeutet es, in den kulturellen und sozialen Raum Europas inkludiert zu sein? Wo ist der gemeinsame Boden fur gemeinsame Identitatsbildung? Welche Identitatsressourcen stehen in Europa zur Verfugung – Sprache und Kommunikation, Geschichte und Erinnerung, Kultur und Geistesgeschichte, Wirtschaft und Politik, Strukturen des gewohnlichen Lebens? Wie wird eine europaische Identitat inszeniert, kultiviert, tradiert und erhalten? Wo lauern Gefahren von Exklusion und Ausgrenzung? Wie zeigen sich Inklusion und Exklusion – und was haben sie mit Identitat zu tun? Der hier vorgelegte Sammelband liefert einige Steine zur Losung des Puzzles europaische Identitat und Inklusion. Die Vielschichtigkeit und Vielfaltigkeit der damit aufgeworfenen Fragen nach dem Gelingen oder dem Scheitern von Teilhabe, Integration, Partizipation und Identifikation machen die hier aus unterschiedlicher wissenschaftlicher Perspektive versammelten Beitrage deutlich. Ob aus soziologischer, kommunikationswissenschaftlicher, politologischer, theologischer, sportsoziologischer oder linguistischer Perspektive, alle Beitrage thematisieren Probleme von Inklusion oder Exklusion in der Europaische Union und reflektieren die damit aufs Engste verknupfte Schwierigkeit der Schaffung einer europaischen Identitat. Im Sinne der Demokratietheorie heist Inklusion zunachst die Moglichkeit der Teilhabe an Offentlichkeit.