PUBLIC FINANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
THE TAX STATE AS A TOOL FOR PROMOTING SOCIAL JUSTICE
Keywords:
Public finance, Human rights, Fiscal sociology, Existential minimum, Material equalityAbstract
This study analyzes the relationship between public finance and human rights. Starting from the formation of the tax state and recognizing that public finance reflects the behaviors of a society and can transform social relations, this paper seeks to understand the historical evolution of human rights and how the debate between the ideas of the existential minimum and material equality developed throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Although human rights movements initially emerged as a language focused on the protection of individual rights and on combating violations of these rights, it is important to reflect on whether this approach is static or whether such language can expand, incorporating, in a a positive and explicit manner, the ideals of social justice within its scope. In doing so, it aims to promote, in a holistic way, the rights of human beings as both individuals and social beings. It is observed that there has recently been an expansion in the language of human rights, incorporating the ideals of social justice into its field of debate, which reflects a broader international awareness. However, in order to promote effective social changes that move toward social justice on a global scale, effective solutions addressing the foundations of the capitalist system must be adopted.
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