ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the forms that economic resources take and the institutional sector that distributes them. It reviews trends in taxation, not so much from its macroimpact on the economy as a whole, but on its more immediate impact on the disposable income available to households. The book argues that an image of hierarchically organized social partners who do their business only at peak level misses much of the dynamic of the welfare society, however. It organizes that distinctions between private and public, state and society, economic and social, and market and politics, oversimplify the more complex and variegated ways in which society. The book proposes a number of modest directions that would enable us to more faithfully portray public/private interplay in the modern world. It explores the social categories institutional actors have invented to operate this evolving set of social innovations.
