Fiscal Sociology at the Centenary: UK Perspectives on Budgeting, Taxation and Austerity by ANNMUMFORD (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 224 pp., £64.99)
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12256 |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Author | TONY PROSSER |
FISCAL SOCIOLOGY AT THE CENTENARY: UK PERSPECTIVES ON
BUDGETING, TAXATION AND AUSTERITY by ANN MUMFORD
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 224 pp., £64.99)
This book contributes to filling a major gap in the literature. Although f iscal
matters have been at the heart of constitutional development in the United
Kingdom (UK) and elsewhere, the budget has been oddly neglected in UK
public law scholarship, including socio-legal work.1
The centenary referred to in the title is that of Joseph Schumpeter’s lecture
‘Crisis of the Tax State’, given while both a professor and Austria’s Minister
of Finance. The author sees the lecture as giving birth to the discipline
of fiscal sociology. This means two things: an approach to tax law that
departs from ‘a dominant, growth-focused narrative’ and engagement in tax
studies with a broader range of concerns such as inequalities, pluralism, and
development. It represents ‘a clarion call to consider a government’s tax and
spending decisions against criteria which deviate from “fiscal responsibility”
and “balanced budgets”’ (p. 2). This is most welcome given the evidentf ailure
of budget balancing to resolve the economic and social effects of the 2008
financial crisis and, especially, in view of the abandonment of traditional
fiscal responsibility in measures to counter the economic collapse caused by
COVID-19.
Schumpeter is really just a jumping-off point for this study (inevitably,
given the disparate nature of his theoretical and political approaches in
different writings) and there is also consideration of work by Keynes, Pareto,
and Marx. The author also notes the revival of a concern with Schumpeter’s
work since 2008, both in terms of the ‘creative destruction’ of firms
(and governments) in capitalist crises, and as ‘a shorthand for expressing
discomfort about capitalism’ (p. 27).
The author then examines the fiscal state and budget institutions, mainly in
the UK. The title of this chapter, ‘The Fiscal State and Budget Institutions’,
is a little misleading as there is very little said about the key UK institutions
such as the Treasury and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Rather, there
is a somewhat miscellaneous account of aspects of history, including Pitt the
Younger’s creation of a Commission for the Reduction of the National Debt,
Gladstone’s 1852 budget, and the People’s Budget of 1909. There is then a
brief discussion of the role of the Prime Minister as the First Lord of the
1 For an exception, see the essays in I. Martin et al. (eds), The New Fiscal Sociology:
Taxation in Comparativeand Historical Perspective (2009).
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