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The apparent ubiquity of progressive taxation in advanced democracies has animated research by political economists in the past decade, but little progress has been made in modeling political equilibria over tax policy when labor supply is elastic with respect to taxation. Here, we postulate an economy with two worker types (wage capacities), in which the unskilled are more numerous than the skilled. Preferences are quasi-linear in income and leisure. One political party represents each worker type. A tax policy is any feasible incentive-compatible menu of pre- and posttax incomes from which each worker must choose. This policy space is three-dimensional. Workers vote stochastically. The equilibrium concept for political competition is party-unanimity Nash equilibrium (PUNE)thus, parties are both vote-seeking and representative. The set of political equilibria is characterized.We prove that, if the class of unskilled workers is not too large (but greater than one-half), then there always exist equilibria in which a regressive tax policy wins. If, however, that class is sufficiently numerous, or inequality is sufficiently great, then the victory of a progressive policy is guaranteed in all equilibria.

La démocratie mettra-t-elle en œuvre l'égalité de chances de longue durée quand la politique fiscale est simple ? Nous modélisons un processus politique dynamique dans lequel, à chaque date, deux partis se forment de façon endogène et entrent en compétition sur l'espace unidimensionnel des taux de taxe. Le revenu disponible des ménages finance leur consommation et l'éducation des enfants. En l'absence de redistribution, l'inégalité de capital humain dans les différentes dynasties persiste indéfiniment. Nous examinons si la compétition électorale peut éliminer cette inégalité à long terme, à travers le financement de l'éducation qu'elle engendre. La réponse dépend de certains aspects du jeu politique et du degré d'asymétrie de la distribution initiale du capital humain. En un mot, la démocratie ne va pas nécessairement éliminer l'inégalité des chances à long terme.

Utilitarians, maximinners, prioritarians, and sufficientarians each provide examples of situations demonstrating, often apparently compellingly, that a sensible ethical observer must adopt their view and reject the others. I argue, to the contrary, that an attractive ethic is eclectic or pluralistic, in the sense of coinciding with these apparently different views in different regions of the space of social states. I reject the view that an appealing ethic can be universally maximin, prioritarian, or utilitarian.