From time to time since the financial crisis first broke, the suggestion has arisen that the crisis itself represented and continues to reflect a failure of capitalism. A motley combination of Keynesians and socialists has needed little excuse to argue for the expansion of the state - and for the accelerated seizure of private wealth that state expansion effectively represents. Another argument, for which we have some sympathy, has it that democracy's efficacy over other forms of government starts to collapse as soon as sufficient members of the population realise that they can vote themselves privileges. In the early stages of this land-grab of self-selected gifts, the system can continue on the back of those productive elements who haven't yet been woken up by noises from the party that the rent-seekers are enjoying. But towards the terminal stages of any democracy, the system starts to buckle under the weight of accumulated privilege. Demographics concentrate the problem; the Western welfarist model will break down long before a huge cohort of pensioners are being supported by the efforts - and taxes - of the very last private sector worker.