EN
A concept of the welfare state is based on the principles of equitable distribution of wealth and equality of opportunity. The state is responsible for the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. Progressive taxation reduces the income gap between the rich and poor. However, the efforts to put principles of the welfare state into practice produced still unsatisfactory results. It was closely connected with violating the subsidiary principle and eroding the work ethics. That is just why the welfare state failed from the ethical and economic point of view.