Monica Prasad

Why is France so French? Culture, institutions, and neoliberalism, 1974- 1981

French capitalism has changed in many ways in the last two decades, but France has not seen the extreme neoliberalism of Britain and the United States. The author first provides evidence that the French pattern is not caused by adherence to cultural traditions of egalitarianism. The author then uses historical and interview data to compare the French case with the American counterexample. The argument is that France has adopted a “pragmatic neoliberalism” because in the postwar period it had adopted a “pragmatic state interventionism” designed not to further goals of social justice, but to turn an agricultural country into an industrial one. Moreover, neoliberalism in the United States required a remarkable degree of extreme political innovation which has not been possible in France.

The origins of tax systems: A french-american comparison

This article examines the origins of tax systems. Through a historical comparison of France and the United States, and analysis of several shadow cases, the article explains why the United States has relied more heavily on progressive income taxation than France, which has favored regressive sales taxes. This study traces the origins of these two tax systems to the early 20th century, arguing that decisions about tax structure were shaped by resistance to the concentration of economic power in the United States and the centralization of state power in France. In the United States, the rapid concentration of economic power in the late 19th century spurred a political movement for a tax with clear redistributive purposes. In France, resistance to the centralization of state power and concomitant fears of “fiscal inquisition” weakened the drive for an effective income tax, leaving the state to rely on consumption taxes to meet its revenue needs. These 19th‐century movements of resistance to modernization shaped the foundations of contemporary political economy.

The thunder of history: The origins and development of the new fiscal sociology

Scholars have long recognized the importance of taxation to the study of modern society. In recent decades, a new and innovative wave of multidisciplinary scholarship on the sources and consequences of taxation has begun to emerge. In this introductory chapter, we chronicle the historical roots, recent developments, and future promise of this emerging field, which we call the new fiscal sociology. More specifically, in our introduction we crystallize the developments in this recent scholarship. We argue that new comparative and historical perspectives provide several innovative insights about taxation. First, that economic development does not inevitably lead to a particular form of taxation, but rather that institutional context, political conflicts, and contingent events lead to a diversity of tax states in the modern world. Second, that taxpayer consent is best explained not as coercion, predation, or illusion, but as a collective bargain in which taxpayers give up resources in exchange for collective goods that amplify the society’s productive capacities. And, third, because taxation is central not only to the state’s capacity in war, but in fact to all of social life, the different forms of the tax state explain many of the political and social differences between countries. The essays in this collection, written by leading scholars from a variety of disciplines, showcase the new fiscal sociology. The contributors explore the many ways in which the relations of taxation are pervasive, dynamic, and central to modernity. The specific chapters address the social and historical sources of tax policy, the problem of taxpayer consent, and the social and cultural consequences of taxation. They trace fundamental connections between tax institutions and macro-historical phenomena – wars, shifting racial boundaries, religious traditions, gender regimes, labor systems, and more. (Contributors include: Charles Tilly, Isaac William Martin, Ajay K. Mehrotra, Monica Prasad, Joseph J. Thorndike, Andrea Louise Campbell, Fred Block, Christopher Howard, Evan S. Lieberman, Eisaku Ide, Sven Steinmo, Naomi Feldman, Joel Slemrod, Robin L. Einhorn, Edgar Kiser, Audrey Sacks, Beverly Moran, Edward McCaffery, W. Elliot Brownlee, and John L. Campbell.)

Tax "Expenditures" and Welfare States: A Critique

Recently several scholars have argued that tax preferences are equivalent to welfare spending, and that our understanding of welfare states should be revised to take tax preferences into account. A tax preference is a provision in the tax code (an exemption, deduction, or credit) by which taxpayers are able to reduce their tax obligations in return for behaving in some specifi c way. For example, the mortgage interest tax deduction allows taxpayers to deduct the interest on their mortgage payments from their taxable income, thereby reducing the taxes they would otherwise owe as long as they are making mortgage payments. Th e tradition of equating tax preferences with welfare spending is several decades old. Stanley Surrey, then assistant secretary of the Treasury, compiled a list of tax preferences for the fi rst time in the 1960s, arguing that they should be examined on the same basis as welfare spending. His argument was that whether welfare is accomplished by fi rst transferring revenue from society to the state and then back to society (welfare spending), or whether it is accomplished by foregoing the tax revenue in certain targeted ways (tax preferences), is equivalent in accounting terms, and should therefore be analyzed equivalently. Surrey insisted on calling tax preferences “tax expenditures,” to highlight their supposed similarity to social expenditures, and this terminology persists today. In this paper, for reasons that will become clear, I avoid the “tax expenditure” terminology and use the term “tax preferences.”

Walking the Line: The White Working Class and the Economic Consequences of Morality

Over one-third of the white working class in America vote for Republicans. Some scholars argue that these voters support Republican economic policies, while others argue that these voters’ preferences on cultural and moral issues override their economic preferences. We draw on in-depth interviews with 120 white working-class voters to defend a broadly “economic” interpretation: for this segment of voters, moral and cultural appeals have an economic dimension, because these voters believe certain moral behaviors will help them prosper economically. Even the very word “conservative” is understood as referencing not respect for tradition generally, but avoidance of debt and excessive consumption specifically. For many respondents, the need to focus on morality and personal responsibility as a means of prospering economically—what we call “walking the line”—accords with the rhetoric they associate with Republicans. Deindustrialization may have heightened the appeal of this rhetoric.

Mechanisms of the ‘Aid Curse’: Lessons from South Korea and Pakistan

Abstract Recently scholars have argued that, far from contributing to development, foreign aid hinders development. But in the 1960s the East Asian countries developed rapidly despite receiving large amounts of aid. To examine why aid seems to undermine development in some cases but not in others, we conduct a detailed comparison of the mechanisms of the ‘aid curse’ in South Korea and Pakistan. We show that South Korea saw astonishing levels of corruption, but this did not hinder its development; and Pakistan had a strong bureaucracy, which did not help it to grow. The key difference between the two countries was in the strength of their tax systems: foreign aid in the context of underdeveloped tax administration leads to increasing cycles of debt that undermine development. When foreign aid arrives in the context of commitment to strong taxation, a country can avoid the ‘aid curse.’

Problem-Solving Sociology

Ronald Reagan said an economist is someone who asks, ‘‘it may work in practice, but will it work in theory?’’ In that regard sociologists do not seem much different from economists. In sociology today a scholar could solve the problem of genocide, and someone somewhere would say ‘‘yes, but what is this a case of?’’ The urge to ‘‘theorize’’—to pull out general implications from a specific situation, to see the universe in the grain of sand—is deeply rooted in our discipline and assumed as a requirement of scholarly publication. But coexisting with this urge to make the specific general is an equally strong urge to be involved with the social problems of the day. Many sociologists choose this discipline precisely because sociology seems to be anchored in studying issues of poverty and inequality. Repeatedly over the last few decades we have seen projects, including by the most eminent members of our profession, focused on bringing sociology closer to the study of contemporary social problems, from Michael Burawoy’s ‘‘Public Sociology’’ to Theda Skocpol’s Scholars Strategy Network. It’s hard to blame scholars for thinking that the science of society ought, after all, to have something to say about contemporary social issues. But this urge stands in tension with the urge to transcend the local and the particular. Recently, several scholars have suggested an approach that can reconcile these conflicting impulses. This approach begins with the observation that the distinction between basic and applied sciences within the natural sciences is overdrawn. In fact, many innovations in basic science have emerged from struggle with applied problems. The most famous example is of Louis Pasteur, whose research into the very practical question of how to prevent beetroot alcohol from souring led to research that provided strong evidence for the germ theory of disease (Stokes 2011). More recently, the attempt to produce better yogurt led to the revolutionary advance of the CRISPR geneediting technology (Grens 2015). Scholars have suggested something similar may hold for the social sciences (Watts 2017; Pearson et al. 2016). To really solve a problem like racism or sexism, for example, requires deep understanding not only of the structures that give rise to racism and sexism—including social stratification, labor market opportunities, and the psychology of group formation—but also the mechanisms that can induce change, such as organizational innovations and social movements in addition to formal changes in rules and laws. Or consider one of the most pressing social problems in America today, how to reintegrate ex-prisoners into society. The consequences of mass incarceration include managing the reentry of millions of Americans who may not have up-do-date skills or training, networks of support, or plans for their lives. But once we begin to examine the question with the intention of solving it, we quickly discover that we are speaking to Durkheimian questions of how communities enforce their boundaries, how they manage symbolic transitions of status, and how they repair breaches (Braithwaite 1989). The problem provides an empirical testing ground for the theories, and the theories become resources for the solving of the

Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal AmericaInequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America, by PontussonJonas. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. 242 pp.

of the authors mention non-coercive actions and variations in coercive methods. However, systematic analyses are needed of the consequences of different kinds of escalation strategies for transitions to negotiations and equitable and enduring settlements. The diversity of views among the contributors to this volume yield some seeming inconsistencies, which attest to the complexity of the matters the contributors examine. The differences should prompt further analyses and syntheses that will specify how adversaries escalate and de-escalate their conflicts. The ways in which adversaries can escalate their conflict yet limit its destructiveness, and then construct a mutually acceptable outcome, deserve reflection and research. The book makes many valuable contributions to explaining how escalating conflicts do and do not lead to negotiations. It should be of great interest to scholars, practitioners, and students in the fields of conflict analysis and resolution, international relations, and large-scale social interaction.