I stopped reading the Grauniad when I read an article that used the expression 'Fat Cats' in a serious manner.

On a more serious note I don't think anyone who matters - including Labour - is arguing that welfare reform isn't necessary. The real problem is putting it into action without taking the political bullet from the vast number of voters who rely on welfare in some form.

Welfare reform may be necessary, but you don't carry out welfare reform by giving Jobcentre staff QUOTAS for how many people's benefit they have to stop, and by having league tables to encourage local jobcentre offices to compete against each other to cut the most people's benefits. That can only lead to a situation where deserving, genuine claimants are denied benefits because jobcentre staff are under pressure to do better in the "league". It's downright immoral and another example of why the Conservative/LibDem government currently plauging the UK are, in very simple terms, the bad guys.

I agree unreservedly that the quota system described is a poor and indiscriminate method of reducing the welfare bill. There are a few things to consider however.

The first is that as reported this is in the Guardian. As mentioned I do not doubt that there is some truth to this quota issue but even if there is I'm unlikely to accept the frankly hysterical take the Guardian has on anything that is remotely against benefits.

The second is that unless you swallow the Labour argument of constant and sustained borrowing to keep the millions on welfare happy Labour voters (and I have difficulty listening to it because Ed Balls fills me with an unnatural hostility - I think it's the permanent sneer and total lack of personal integrity) spending has to come down. The welfare budget is ridiculously inflated and monolithic and is the most natural target for reduction. What is immoral is that there are millions who should not be on welfare.

Thirdly, while I am by no means a supporter of the Government, I'm pretty doubtful the Opposition would be doing any better. They have consistently failed to produce a systemic alternative plan and confine themselves to sputtering the occasional vague policy. If anything the majority of their criticisms (much like the Guardian's) are ad hominem crowd-pleasers that do nothing to genuinely address problems.

Hereward77:

As of Feb 2011, 5.3 million working-age people were in receipt of an out-of-work benefit. Of these, 2.6 million (49%) were sick or disabled, 1.4 million (27%) were unemployed and 0.6 million (12%) were lone parents. (I've taken this figure from www.poverty.org.uk but if you think those figures are wrong feel free to provide an alternative figure provided you quote the source.)

You claim that "millions" of people should not be on benefits. By "millions" you must mean at least two million, out of a total of 5.3m, so you'd kick well over a third of the current claimants off benefits.

Who are the "millions" who shouldn't be on benefits in your view, and how would they be taken off benefits?

"I stopped reading the Grauniad when I read an article that used the expression 'Fat Cats' in a serious manner."

I think I saw that article. A hard-hitting expose on feline obesity, right? Heartbreaking to see those poor, poor fat cats, just barely able to waddle from the food dish to the litter box.

I am unable to find an alternative source on short notice so we'll use the ones you have provided. I would point out that they apply to out-of-work benefits and not welfare as a whole (which is what I said above when referring to 'millions') which would include social housing, old age services and the numerous child-based benefits to name a few. We'll ignore those for the time being.

Going through the three categories sequentially, the first category of 2.6 million provides ample fodder for cutting, largely because it is not as difficult as it seems to acquire the requisite label of 'sick or disabled'. This is a tragedy because it doesn't help those who genuinely need it.

The second category really comes down to a criticism of the way things like Jobseeker's Allowance work. Again, it is not actually very difficult to claim and from an ideological standpoint I am against having to pay people to find work/pay them while they look for work, depending on your view.

Third category is similar to the above. I do not see why by virtue of being a lone parent you should be paid. The aim often trotted out is to protect the children involved in such circumstances. I would respond that an element of personal responsibility needs to exist on the part of the parents and would also argue there are ways of protecting such children without paying the lone parent.

I am aware some of my counters above are a bit weak or vague but that's largely because of my point in the first paragraph - the millions I referred to are on 'welfare' which is not just out-of-work benefit.

As for the method for implementing this cutting without causing severe social shock I would suspect an incremental reduction over a long period - say a decade or so. This is something of a fantasy I realise. Every recipient of welfare is also a voter and who on earth would vote to give up money? The Fabians were right.

@ Hereward:

"it is not as difficult as it seems to acquire the requisite label of 'sick or disabled' "

Please elaborate on this point. Other than by committing fraud, how are people who are not disabled able to claim benefits meant for disabled people?


"Jobseeker's Allowance... from an ideological standpoint I am against having to pay people to find work"

If they are unemployed and genuinely trying hard to find work, how would you expect them to buy food and pay basic bills without this support from the state? Or from an ideological standpoint do you think it would just be fine for them to starve?

Oh and while you're on the subject of how easy it is to claim to be sick or disabled:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/braindamaged-amputee-fit-for-work-says-atos-8547539.html

"Jobseeker's Allowance... from an ideological standpoint I am against having to pay people to find work"
By his words may you know him, obviously a deep thinker.
Thankfully in the REAL world ideology knows it's place........ reality bites !!

There are a number of diseases that qualify you as 'disabled' which have appallingly vague or uncertain diagnostic criteria. Myoencephalopathy is a good, but not isolated example. Many people also badger their doctors for such letters and classifications - and get them. Many disabled people are not incapable of being self-sufficient financially (in fact many would take objection to the claim that they were less able to earn money and live their lives like anyone else) and yet are disabled or sick. In short, committing fraud is one way people can cheat the system but they don't need to for the reasons stated.

I read the article you linked. If anything it reinforces my point that the system for classifying disability and sickness is a poor and unreliable one. Here's an opposite example (admittedly from the Daily Mail but hey, the Guardian was used earlier):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297027/Magistrate-48-appeared-C4-Coach-Trip-stole-22-500-disability-benefits-working-salsa-instructor.html

I don't want anyone to starve, but you seem to be assuming that all 1.4 million of those who are claiming unemployment benefit are people who, through no fault of their own, have fallen on hard times and are doing their utmost to find work. While undoubtedly many will be just such people, a very great many will not. Those who are not should not be able to exploit the system. I would also point out that those people you describe - the honest hard workers - are also the most employable and thus are unlikely to be unemployed for an enormous length of time.

I acknowledge that reality bites. I'm just as open to accusations of utopianism! I just think that many of the criticisms levelled at those in favour of cutting welfare are unfair. I struggle with the idea that equality of outcome should prevail over equality of opportunity. Translating that into real world policy that helps give the deserving the right opportunities without crippling the vital input-reward dynamic that actually funds it is difficult.

@ Hereward:

I don't really see the relevance of the story in the Daily Mail - it involves a clear case of fraud. I don't support people fraudulently claiming benefits and have never said otherwise.

"I don't want anyone to starve, but you seem to be assuming that all 1.4 million of those who are claiming unemployment benefit are people who, through no fault of their own, have fallen on hard times and are doing their utmost to find work. While undoubtedly many will be just such people, a very great many will not. Those who are not should not be able to exploit the system. I would also point out that those people you describe - the honest hard workers - are also the most employable and thus are unlikely to be unemployed for an enormous length of time."

I was unemployed for four months a few years ago and would have been completely unable to survive had it not been for Jobseeker's Allowance. It's very difficult to live on JSA as the amount you get is really very small, barely enough to live on.

I dispute the claim that large numbers of people "exploit" the system and claim JSA when they are not actually interested in working. JSA doesn't give you enough money to live on, long term. Having claimed it myself I don't see how it would be possible to just sit around on JSA and do nothing. You claim that lots of people are doing this - claiming JSA without trying to find work. Can you prove it or are you just speculating?

You have a number of people now on the dole and in prison that are victims of the failed education policies that allowed illiterate children to leave school early rather than screw up the school league tables by sitting and failing exams, by brother is one such case. These children should have been given extra tuition, instead they were put in classes (and given no tuition) so that they did not disturb the pupils who were going to pass the exams and boost the schools standing in the league tables, he was allowed to leave school in April at the age of 15.
Guess what happens next, can't get a job because they can't fill in an application form, turn to crime to raise cash, end up in prison.
This is the harsh reality of failed education policies. My brother has taught himself to read now, he probably has the reading and spelling age of a 12 year old but it's enough to get by. He still suffers from low self-esteem, has no qualifications. Luckily for Gary he has a family that supported him through the tough times and never gave up on him, he has had a number of low-skilled jobs. He gets work from time-to-time as a handyman and gets paid in cash. He lives in a council house with my mum and is her carer as she is registered blind. For this he/she gets a small amount of money from the govt as I'm sure it would cost much more if she was put in a retirement home. ....... I'm sure there are 10 if not hundred's of thousands of Garys who now embrace a life on benefits, knowing that their chances of long-term meaningful employment with a pension at the end of it are non-existent, reality bites.

Just like a typical left wing opinion piece using very little in the way of actual evidence to support it. "A few job centres are using questionable methods to reduce the amount of benefit that gets paid out therefore Tories are going to eat your babies" is pretty much the article in a nutshell.

Question: Is it reasonable to assume that a significant number of people have been getting more benefits than they are entitled to?
Answer: Yes
Question: Is it reasonable to ask job centres to increase efforts to make sure far fewer people get more than they are entitled to?
Answer: Yes
Question: Is it reasonable to encourage job centres to attempt to stop people getting benefits they are entitled to?
Answer: No

I suspect the government has acted reasonably and in a minority of cases some managers have been overzealous in how they interpret their instructions. Actions should be taken to stop future repeats of the error, but I've seen nothing to overly concern me.

The man was able to be signed off as disabled when he turned out not to be. I'm using it as an example of how finding a newspaper story going one way or the other doesn't really mean much when discussing the policy because examples exist on both sides.

I was unemployed for four months a few years ago as well, at the same time as an immediate relative. He claimed JSA, I did not. He didn't need it for the same reasons I could get by without it but he claimed it anyway (and so should he, why not?). Why would he not? It's there. I'm not saying people who need it don't exist, I'm saying too many people who don't need it are able to take advantage of it.

I have no direct proof of this, I am speculating I admit. I could level the same question to you though. Can you prove that people who claim it REALLY need it in every case or even most cases?

Typical mindset of a a morally corrupt right winged person exemplified in Hereward. Justifying someone taking advantage of the fact that a system can't be perfect - "he claimed it anyway (and so should he, why not?)", whilst having a tirade at something that provides basic foundational support to those most in need - sometimes, as linked above, failing to even do that bare minimum. And, maybe this is a value statement, but I would rather that we didn't have any people like in the article linked above who do not have the safety net like they need and a few 'benefit scroungers' (who, in the rare occasion they do exist are justified in my mind), than have no 'benefit scroungers' exploiting the state, whilst hundreds of thousands of our society's weakest members have an even more miserable existence than they do already.

Oh and the amount we lose paying benefits to those not in need is a miniscule part of the budget (without even doing the traditionally lefty comparison to the rich exploiting tax loopholes in detail).

There is a very strong positive correlation between education and long-term unemployment. Some of these people are now unemployable, they are feral.
I think we are paying them not to steal and be anti-social and that doesn't always work. We are reaping the rewards of an education policy that decided to leave the struggling kids behind, that is the cold hard truth....

obviously that positive correlation is related to a lack of education......

I object to being labelled 'morally corrupt'. Whose morals are we using as a basis for this? Yours? Again, an ad hominem attack is not a response worth anything. Attack what I say by all means but don't call me immoral unless you have a much more intimate view of my personal morals. 'Right-wing' is an airy and loosely defined concept and using it as a pejorative does nothing to clarify that.

As for justification of someone taking advantage - I did not intend to justify it. I could get into more detail about it but I'd rather than as that strays too far into the personal.

I do like the way you used different language for the two parts. 'taking advantage' opposed to words like 'basic' and 'foundational'. Anyway, the whole point is that it is not just a few benefit scroungers. I'm not even talking entirely about fraudulent claimants, I'm talking about marginal claimants and the idea that responsibility for your own life resides with the government and not with yourself. Also, to claim that any more than a comparatively small number of people live in 'misery' is baffling. We live in one of the most comfortable places to live on Earth, so unless you're going to trot out the 'relative poverty' argument words like misery are not appropriate.

The amount we lose paying benefits is based upon your baseline as to what is necessary and what is not. You have decided that the vast majority of recipients are entirely deserving of all the money they receive. Thus, anyone who does not deserve it must be in a tiny minority. From my perspective, the baseline is lower (but NOT non-existent, I do believe in a safety net, just a lower and narrower one) and thus the people who should not be receiving is higher. That means that the amount we lose paying benefits from my perspective is significantly higher.

As a side note, I agree wholeheartedly that education is under-prioritised and under-funded. A fitting place to re-allocate savings, no?

It was that or stupid and I believe that you are seemingly relatively intelligent so I was left with no real choice. By definition if I am calling you morally corrupt, and think you're morally corrupt, I am using my morals as the basis. Well I'm glad that although it was a response not worth anything, you chose to indulge me in a response. Again, I personaly believe that someone that is seriously advancing the views you are espewing, they have to fall into at least one of the two camps of stupid and immoral (at least on the condition we are assuming that morality exists). I'm glad that you called Octavious out for his use of 'left wing' too, wouldn't want you to be hypocritical here now would we.

Be that as it may, the little detail you gave initially was, in my mind at least, definitely portraying the actions as ok, and you gave no further defense than 'why not?'. Naturally there may be other extenuating circumstances that you are well within your right to refrain from sharing, but from what you wrote that was indeed what you were doing.

I am not sure if that is sarcastic or not, but thanks either way. Even though I think attacking the marginal claimants is a bad idea inherently because then we are going to miss out on more people that need the help they get, I also think you are wrong here because even the marginal claimants deserve the help they get! And noone is arguing for a fully capable adult that is a marginal claimant to be able to completely devolve themselves of all responsibility onto the government. Define comparatively small? Besides the fact that a 'relative poverty' argument is an important one, I think we can safely say that it is more than just one or two individuals living in very sub-standard conditions.

I agree that that is a big part of the difference, but I think there are two other points to consider. I think that, in a line of thinking seemingly similar to Nigee's on education, that more care actually saves money later on, and moreover I would say it generates money for us. Secondly, I think that morally these people are entitled to their benefits and that the cost is therefore 'low' as, well, morals over money.

Ooo, an interesting twist! I would actually agree on that.

I can sense a creeping hostility here and I am to blame for it. I apologise for the tone I had, I bridled a bit at being called morally corrupt. I hope you understand why. With respect, I don't accept your moral views so I do not view myself as immoral (arguably amoral...you touched on that but I think that's a debate for another time).

I did give little detail and again that is my lack of precision in explaining. My point was that I have personal stories that relate to this and that I can see perfectly well why human beings would take something if offered. That is a problem when a great deal is being offered. The fact that such a justification exists doesn't make something a good social policy.

It wasn't sarcastic, I just felt what you said was a bit loaded in tone. Again, apologies if I come across as disrespectful, I have no desire to be.

Two problems here - fully capable adult and 'comparatively small'. One of my points earlier was that it is not difficult to be removed from the 'fully capable' category, either voluntarily or involuntarily. The definition of fully capable is, I think, one of the major sticking points here. I believe the bar for being incapable to an extent you need government subsidy should be lower than it is now. Obviously, you do not. The consequences are a bloated welfare system that inevitably wastes large sums of money - too much money. As for comparatively small, may I take the earlier figure of individuals on out-of-work benefits as an estimate of those who could potentially qualify to be in 'misery' (making the assumption that those who are not are at a more average Western level of income and comfort - nowhere near misery)? 5.3 million people. 8.4% of the UK population. How many of these are going to be living in anything that could be described as 'misery'? I'm speculating from here again I'll admit, but most of these people are in receipt of benefits and have families and other forms of support. The ones who are left would, in my view, constitute a 'comparatively small' proportion of the population. This is quite an isolated calculation too because even those who are left are likely not to be sat alone in a hut, totally incapable and with no living relatives or people who care about them. For the handful who do genuinely live like that, that's why I do believe in a much lower bar, but a bar nevertheless.

I think there are better ways of spending the money to improve lives than more care. A good example is moving educationally from a common denominator creed to an aspirational one. What we have is a jealousy based system. That is by the by though.

Again I would ask what morals are relevant here. I am not a believer in automatic entitlements to most things. I think rights are generated with corresponding duties. Nothing is free and to think so is to court disaster because eventually the money runs out... just look at Greece, or here if we're not careful.

I completely agree with you, and I'm sorry for what were probably harsh words, I speak very passionately on these subjects, but beyond the discussion mean no offens or anything, most of my friends are probably right of you and this is normally just a quick laughable heated exchange.

I will leave addressing your large paragraph for now - you raise some good points (that I disagree with), but I feel the crux of our disagreement at least lies with your last paragraph. Personally I don't just believe that automatic entitlements whilst others have to slave away is fair, at all, but that is just what we have here in our country. Many people are born into situations where they have much more than they need and never have to work, and many many more are born into situations where they have better paid more pleasant work than harder working poorer counterparts, and for no just reason. I think this is the greatest injustice, that we have people born into situations where they can waste away in an idle fashion, or at least toil away without too much effort, when others, not for a lack of trying or intelligence (although I don't really think the intelligence matters either), have to slave away much harder to get much less.

I should have clarified - automatic entitlements from the government. What you are pointing out (correct me if I'm wrong) is that some humans are born into more affluent or encouraging environments than others and that this is unfair. I assume you are not referring to the natural gradient of ability that humans have which is a separate argument.

Believe it or not, I consider myself a meritocrat. I think that achievement should be based purely on achievement, or as close as it can be. Most people agree on this, but what a lot do not seem to accept is the corollary - those who don't achieve will not do as well. There MUST be losers in order for there to be winners and we need winners to generate money, lead, innovate, excel in whatever field they choose.

There is also an assumption that being born into an affluent or supportive family seems to mean that your achievements are worth less. In many situations, for example, people are penalised for their more fortunate background - I was advised on leaving school to AVOID giving away where I was educated (a very good and well known school funded by the government) on job and university applications. That is also an injustice. It's exactly the same principle - don't discriminate based on the circumstances of birth. Yet it happens. A better system is to run things on ability as I have said. It is not injustice for an able person (in the sense of talented, however so) to do better than someone else. Again, aspiration, not lowest common denominator.

Inequality of outcome is both counter-productive and no more just than inequality of opportunity. The system we have falls down on both sides - it doesn't sufficiently help those with genuine ability and a poor background and it targets places like grammar schools rather than private schools. Having said all of that...bring everyone up. Give every child a good shot and if some fail...they fail. Unpalatable but necessary. Don't drag them all down to the lowest denominator.

an interesting fact, approx. 50% of the prison population are illiterate

Why should the government exist if not to better our condition?

If you look at the stats there isn't much movement between social classes, most people stay in the class they were born, so I would say meritocracy is a myth, and equality of opportunity can only exist if there is equality of outcome, in the Marxist sense of to each according to their needs. And I would say it is not just that because you, or I, was born more intelligent than your average joe that we have better standard of livings.

+1

Well that depends heavily on whether the government actually betters your condition. There are various less tangible 'betterments' like order, services etc.

I didn't think social classes were really a robust way of measuring people any more. Even if you do use them they're tricky. Values, money or both?

I don't have time for a full response now but the 'each according to their needs' Marxist argument is a nice thought but it doesn't work for a whole host of reasons. Incentive is a big one. My needs as a mammal are similar to everyone else's. I have no incentive to work particularly hard because I'll get what I need. It also ignores things that can never be equal. I want my neighbour's wife. Nay, I NEED her! I don't need another one, just her. You can see where that goes. Maybe a new thread for criticising/advocating Marxism! :D

You only took half the phrase and by doing so rendered it into a straw man. The full quote is:

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

The second part only works if it's partnered with the first.

Leave Marxism to the dreamers and philosophers.
We are dealing with a reality here ..... an education system that failed the most needy children in our society, and now a govt and a benefits system that seeks to punish the 'shirkers'.
It's govt policy written by the ignorant for the foolhardy.
If there are so many shirkers in the UK it's a sad inditement on the state of our society, of course that's not the case, it's just an attempt to shift the attention and the blame from our striving, hard-working, super-efficient bankers who have managed to plunge our economy and our financial systems into turmoil causing hardship for many and wiping billions off the value of pension funds.
Let's plan for the future, soon we'll have the Rumanians and Bulgarians to blame for our economic woes. Immigrants, scum-sucking pigs.
We need our govt to MAN-UP, they are wimps, cowards and bullies, picking on and blaming the weakest sections of our society for the gambling losses of the rich and greedy bankers, it's shameless.

If you just look at earnings then there isn't much social movement. And unsurprisingly I disagre with your agruments against Marxism, but yes another thread.

And yes Jamie, I know the full quote, and of course that's how the system works, but I was just focusing on what the outputs to the people should be.

@Nigee - not to defend the greedy bankers, god knows I love to pick on the fat cats as much as the next lefty, but really cyclical crises, crisis theory, capitalism's faults. Or without going off on a hardcore Marxist tangent, most people liked the system when there was growth, when things were good, and most people I dare say would have done the same in those bankers shoes. Not to say this negates the right to complain, but by scapegoating the bankers we are ignoring the bigger problem, and this will only lead to history repeating itself.

@ Socrates Diss:

I'm sure you were aware of the full line but by only using half of it you set up a straw man for Hereward to knock down, which he did, using stupid arguments that fall down when set next to the full idea.

I don't really agree my argument was 'stupid'. Flippant maybe, not stupid. I'm not sure where the hostility is coming from. It doesn't change the fundamental problem of incentive. Humans don't function on the utopian basis that they will always give to their potential and only ask for what they need. They want rewards commensurate to their achievement levels. The assumptions just don't work, and the system doesn't work, which is why we've never seen a functioning Marxist system in the final form. It always seems to stick in the same place.

Nor does adding the first clause really address those issues which cannot be quantified through 'ability' and 'need'. These things spill over into the more identifiable areas. The wife example is one, how do you judge emotional need? How about social need? Emotional ability? Social ability? You can argue the statement only covers economic issues, but that assumes economies work in isolation. I'd love to hear if Marx (for I'm afraid I'm ignorant of anything except Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto) actually addressed the non-economic dimension of his envisioned system and how that squares with it?

It's been a few years since I read/studied Marx so I admit my knowledge of the detail is not what it was, but the above echoes my initial sentiments.

I would also point out that while the greedy bankers are certainly at the heart of the current problems, they were also a significant part of the prosperity that came before it. The current system is deeply flawed and (you may be surprised to hear) I agree that bankers became greedy and avaricious and caused immeasurable damage. What I don't see is a mass global switching to Marxism or even socialism. The capitalist-Marxist argument is an important one, but it is over outside of philosophical discussions.

One thing we have to know about Marx which you have to put into the perspective of what he achieved with his writing; he had 7 children (8 including the one with the housekeeper), 3 of them lived to adulthood. His friend Engels bailed him out financially as he didn't work and his family lived in poverty.
By his actions may you know him.......no more romanticism please.

Wealth creation in itself is not a crime, exploiting resources, human or otherwise, to create a surplus is at the very heart of our market economy and capitalist philosophy.
What happens next is the important bit, what do we do with that wealth?
Experience has shown us that in times growth the market economy model leads to the rich getting richer both in actual and percentage terms.
Not a huge problem morally or philosophically but economically this is problematic because the MPC - marginal propensity to consume of rich people is so much lower than that of poor people so the outflow/leakage of cash from the economy into the offshore bank accounts of the wealthy leads to credit shortages in local markets but an ever increasing rise in 'hot money' (idle cash wealth) chasing ever higher interest rates, this does nothing to add to our economy, in fact it sucks out even more money from the system in the form of interest, beware that while the rich are getting ever-richer it is not an economic miracle, somebody is paying.
The people paying are the people or govts borrowing cash to put funds back into the economy to make up for the cash withdrawn in ever increasing profits for the wealthy.
To cut a long story short the way out of our current malaise is to bring that idle wealth currently being used to speculate in a variety of world markets (usually the outcome of this speculation is to push prices higher e.g. precious metals).
Whether this repatriation is done via legislation or tax incentives or wealth tax is up to individual markets but bear in mind the effects will be short-term if the growth that ensues and wealth generated just ends up back into the hands of the rich, once again we would have a leakage from our economy which will need to be plugged by borrowing.
Regardless of how unacceptable/unpopular this would be (look at what is currently happening in Cyprus) it is the only answer.
1) Tax wealth
2) Govts reduce debt, push money back into the economy via infrastructure investment projects, this leads to lower unemployment, higher growth, increased wealth.
3) Govt revenue tax take increases, the owners of the means of production gain and the capitalist market cycle continues. i.e. Wealthy getting wealthier

What has happened and the reason why capitalism is failing so badly is that govts have allowed the wealthy to take too much money out of the economy and that money is causing mayhem around the world in international financial market leading to booms and slumps (humping and dumping in colloquial terms).
To make the market economy work again we need to get back that money into the economy, this is the responsibility of govts not bankers, if only politicians weren't being paid by bankers to do nothing capitalism would be flourishing.
People are criticising the actions in Cyprus but it is a bold and courageous move that needs to be repeated all over the world.
In practical terms we need to tax wealth possibly via property assets or through cash deposits, problem with taxing cash is that a lot of it is hiding trying to avoid being taxed. Property tax is therefore a very practical way forward.
The greedy capitalists are starving the economic system that made them rich in the 1st place. It can't go on.

@ Hereward:

The "wife example" is entirely spurious. Why do you want or expect the state to become involved in finding romantic partners for people? Even in a communist society there's no reason for that to be the role of government.

It could be argued that "we've never seen a functioning Marxist system in the final form" but then it could be argued that we've never seen a succesfully functioning capitalist system either. I certainly know that whenever I criticise capitalism using a practical example, I get free-marketers and libertarians jumping up and shouting "no, no, that's not *true* capitalism because the state passed a law saying corporations couldn't farm babies for meat and that should be left up to the market..." or whatever.

While it is true that the axiom is largely concerned with economic factors, Marx himself certainly looked at social issues. The key issue for him being alienation - the way in which capitalist production, by treating workers only as "cogs in the machine" as it were, alienated them from their labour. Not space here for the full discussion but an interesting concept.