re: US...James O'Connor made similar argument to that of Offe in _Fiscal Crisis of the State_ (1973)..taking into account 'free market/private enterprise' ideology, he called outlays that subsidize accumulation (i.e., education, infrastructure, transportation) *social capital* and those that go towards legitimation (including some income transfers to elderly, unemployed. and poor) *social expenditures*...because ideological hegemony precluded socializing production that would transcend private appropriation and since state couldn't risk offending propertied class without possible "investment strike," financing occurred through taxing wage-earners and debt creation...
of course, within a decade of the appearance of O'Connor's book, a corporate-led assault was slashing already-meager welfare spending, contracting out and privatizing of public services were coming into vogue, public-sector workers were under attack, and union-busting was undermining the post-WW2 corporate-government-organized labor (with the latter as a decidedly junior partner) tripartite arrangement... capital's strategy for 'resolving' the fiscal crisis...Michael Hoover