Public Finance

When working toward Gekaufte Zeit (in English: Buying Time), I hit on the subject of state finance, especially state budget deficits and public debt. The issue had already been discussed in the 1920s by the likes of Rudolf Goldscheid and Joseph Schumpeter, responding in part to Adolph Wagner and his Gesetz der wachsenden Staatsausgaben (Law of Increasing Government Spending). In the late 1960s, the Marxist political economist, James O’Connor, returned to the debate in a book titled The Fiscal Crisis of the State. The book convinced me that public deficits and public debt are a crucial parameter for understanding the political economy of contemporary capitalism. In recent years, public debt has further increased dramatically compared to when I last worked on it, which calls for a return to the subject in the near future.