Tax Hypotheses Crises expand public tolerance for higher levels of taxation and spending expands to use up available revenues. Other explanations range from interest group activity to demographic changes. They posit, as an alternative, a cultural theory which basically asserts that if we spend more it's because we want to spend more. They cite the emergence of what they term sectarianism, which has its roots among alienated intellectuals. Affluence leads to the denigration of the profit motive on which that affluence rests.
Sectarianism is one three political cultures, or regimes, present in Western society.
Each implies a different approach to social spending. Hierarchical regimes justify inequality on grounds that it specialization and division of labor enable people to live together with greater harmony and effectiveness than do alternative arrangements. There is a sacrificial ethic at work, the parts are supposed to sacrifice for the whole. Market regimes, with their individualist focus, produce spending strategies that involve both minimal taxation and expenditure Sectarianism, in contrast, is committed to a life of purely voluntary association which is impossible with equality of condition. Expenditures have risen only modestly in most other areas, and defense spending has actually declined.