ABSTRACT
Some of the roles played by government in influencing economic inequality have already been alluded to. The state plays a major role in financing the education whose attainment is a major element of earnings determination (see Chapters 6 through 9); it safeguards the property rights which distribute income from property (Chapters 5 and 11), and its redistributive policies have been blamed, unfairly, for slow growth (Chapter 12)—to name only a few of its impacts on economic inequality. In Chapter 9 we also noted that opinions may differ as to what kind of action to expect from government. In this chapter we do not attempt to outline a political theory of what actions governments will take on the issue of economic inequality. Rather, we consider only the impacts of the actions they have taken (13.2 and 13.3) and a few of the actions they could take (13.4).
