at the same time highly unequal countries like south africa and brazil have relatively stable proportions of the population that believe incomes should be made more equal the shift in preferences towards redistribution in the brics shown in figure is in line with similar findings for oecd countries oecd forthcoming only in a few oecd countries has no change been found since the late s of course the view that incomes should be made more or less equal says little about the preferred method for achieving such a change how these attitudes towards inequality translate into concrete government policy such as tax and transfer schemes or public service provision is an important part of the social contract in every country