John Stuart Mill noticed that citizens often view taxation laws as being fair, as long as taxation is also applied equally to everyone else in society.[1] Political theorist Margaret Levi applied the term to the perceived fairness of conscription in democracies, to which citizens may consent as long as conscription is enforced as a universal duty – as opposed to elitist and exceptionalist policies, as it will sometimes occur in partial mobilization.[2]
The term was also adopted by Lee Iacocca[3] who, as the president of Chrysler, lowered his salary to less than a dollar a year before asking union members for radical wage cuts in order to deal with the company's financial difficulties.[4] During the financial crisis of 2007–2010, Iacocca's example has often been mentioned in opposition to "unconditional" government bail-out of failing companies. In a letter to the leaders of the big three U.S. automakers, Senator Chuck Grassley said that before receiving a government bailout executives should follow the example of former Chrysler head Lee Iacocca and cut their own pay:
↑"As a government ought to make no distinction of persons or classes in the strength of their claims on it, whatever sacrifices it requires from them should be made to bear as nearly as possible with the same pressure upon all [...] Equality of taxation, therefore, as a maxim of politics, means equality of sacrifice." John Stuart Mill. 1848. Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, p. 804, as cited in Шаблон:Cite journal
↑Levi, Margaret. 1997. Consent, Dissent and Patriotism. Cambridge University Press (Шаблон:ISBN) p. 26
