A Policy for Sugar

our basic socialistic pattern insofar as it corrects economic inequality and prevents inordinate and enduring differences among persons and families in wealth, power and opportunities".10 How the extreme progressiveness of the tax structure helps to meet "urgent economic needs", is not so obvious. One cannot accept the Finance Ministry's contention unless one assumes that (i) total savings (government's, wealthy persons', and lower income classes', out of government transfers or multiplier effects of government expenditure) would increase with reduction in "economic inequality", or (ii) that all Government expenditure is of national priority in- vestment type, or (iii) that if left in the pockets of . the people, tax reduction (from present levels) will be frittered away into consumption. Of course, one may tend to grant the socialistic achievements of the progressiveness of the tax structure, though this is also subject to debate when one considers the marginal (direct and indirect) tax burden in recent years.11 But then one ought to know the economic cost of doing so.