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FISCAL CRISIS

Refers broadly to a long-term situation where government expenditures exceed government revenues. Within modern Marxist theory (neo-Marxism), the term has been used more specifically to refer to a situation where governments have increased their role in society in serving the needs of private capital, but have not been able to adequately tax private capital to support the expenditures. For example, technical employment training has now largely become a preserve of the state (rather than the private employer), leaving the state with additional expenditures, but without corresponding revenues. According to neo-Marxism, this tendency is linked to the development of economic concentration and monopoly and inbuilt in the capitalist economic system. The fiscal crisis of the state is thought to drive much contemporary government policy on social programs.

Last updated 2002--0-9-

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© Robert Drislane, Ph.D. and Gary Parkinson, Ph.D.
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