• Socialists believe that capitalism is fundamentally unfair and exploitative of the proletariat.
  • aka. the working class
• They believe that there is no innate right to property
  • Concept of the ‘the worlds resources belong to everyone’
• and therefore, in order to achieve equality of outcome:
  • reject free-market economics (laissez-faire)
  • greater collective ownership of property and redistribution of wealth

Policies

Progressive Taxation

• Higher tax rates as income increases.
• An example of this can be seen with Denmark in which the top bracket of taxation is 60%, or the top bracket in Scotland being 48%.

Progressive Public Spending

• Higher spending on benefits.
• An example of this would be increased benefits, e.g., state pensions, disability benefits, and the released cap on child benefits (used to be a cap of two children).

Extensive Public Services

• More spending on health and education.
• An example of this would be 1997-2010 Blair era Government spending on the NHS and education.

State Regulation

• Rules covering the role of markets and employee/employer relationships.
  • These will primarily focus on mitigating the potential abuse/exploitation of employees from employers.
• An example of this would be the minimum wage, union rights, and Government regulators such as the competition authority.

State/Common Ownership

• Government ownership of industries.
• An example of this would be post-1945 nationalisation, such as British Gas, British Rail, British Telecom (BT), and British Airways.