Rousseauian reflections on Social Inequality and its Implications for Contemporary Taxation

Abstract

This article examines Rousseau’s contributions in light of the Brazilian tax reality, with an emphasis on Personal Income Tax, highlighting the contradictions between the ideal of social justice and contemporary state practice. Social inequality, as a historical and structural phenomenon, finds in the Genevan philosopher a critical reference point for understanding its origins and persistence in civil society. The study, based on deductive bibliographic research with a qualitative and quantitative approach, analyzes how private property and the concentration of wealth have shaped structures of domination that are reproduced in the present. The results demonstrate that tax progressivity, although foreseen, is insufficient to reduce disparities, since it affects modest incomes but remains stable for high earnings. Rousseau’s reflection, by proposing a public economy oriented towards the common good, offers subsidies for rethinking tax equity as an instrument for confronting social inequalities in Brazil

KEYWORDS: Rousseau. Social inequality. Private property. Political economy. Taxation.