I’m puzzled by the use of the word “therefore” in the passage you quote – the second sentence doesn’t seem to follow from the first sentence at all.

I assume the banners will read:
don’t take *our* money – take *someone else’s* money

Alternatively: We the undersigned believe that stable public finances are critical for the provision of those welfare state and public services which are an essential part of any civilised society. In that same spirit of pooling the risk across the population and providing support and services to all we therefore call on the next government to implement a 10% pay cut across all public sector employees earning more than £50,000, and a 5% cut for those earning more than £20,000, sharing the same pain which private sector workers are currently experiencing and demonstrating that solidarity and commitment to public service which our strikes will shortly be demonstrating, erm….

Uprisings

uprisings have always been possibilities in various places and various times. But in reality uprisings have taken place. That was when man involved himself in the uprising. This involvement demands courage, determination and understanding of the necessity for which an uprising is indicated.
By turning a possibility into a reality, man actually applies reality to his own life. That distinguishes him (or her) of the rest, whose lives are just contingencies. This acquired reality makes a person infinite, which is to say indispensable. The act of uprising at this time, now, has never been so needed. Thus, man has never been so fortunate as now, to commit to the reality of uprising.
possibilities will fade away; realities will come to being. And with that the indispensable man will be born in the act of uprising.

long live the unity between the workers and students.
long live the Revolution

“long live the Revolution”

According to Engels, Marx really believed that in England we could reach a state of Communism by “peaceful and legal means”.

“Surely, at such a moment, the voice ought to be heard of a man whose whole theory is the result of a lifelong study of the economic history and condition of England, and whom that study led to the conclusion that, at least in Europe, England is the only country where the inevitable social revolution might be effected entirely by peaceful and legal means. He certainly never forgot to add that he hardly expected the English ruling classes to submit, without a ‘pro-slavery rebellion,’ to this peaceful and legal revolution.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p6.htm

One intriguing historical question is why did Marx and family, on being hounded out of other European countries, seek refuge in 1849 in London, the capital city of the premier capitalist country at the time. A Blue Plaque on the Quo Vadis restaurant at 26 Dean Street, Soho, commemorates one of the places where the family lived:
http://www.quovadissoho.co.uk/

Marx and family lived off occasional journalism and subventions from Engels, who ran a successful family textile business in Manchester.

Bob,

It should also be remembered that Engels was a keen fox hunter, who believed that pleasure (? not one I’d go for) and those of fine wine and good food should be available to all – i.e. his view of communism was that everyone would be in the upper middle classes.

The defence of the welfare state here seems to have a different view of their function than that Engels had – merely seeing them as a safety blanket in case of risk. It is concerning that this is the normally presented ideology of the British left, rather than the grand (supportable and possibly even achievable) aspirations of Engels, they want to conserve a system that minimises risk without considering if it the best way to do so.

Credit for starting a national welfare state must surely go to Count von Bismarck, first Chancellor of the German empire (1871-90), who launched not only state pensions for the aged but, in 1883, a social insurance scheme to cover personal healthcare costs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Chancellor_of_the_German_Empire

We are rather apt to forget or overlook that the origins of a “social market economy” in some other west European countries run longer and deeper than the origins of the welfare state in Britain. To alleviate any uncertainties, Bismarck was not renown for his socialist inclinations.

And as we have been reminded, public spending on healthcare as a percentage of national GDP is higher in several west European countries than in Britain. Try this from the OECD Factbook 2009:
http://oberon.sourceoecd.org/vl=1074433/cl=30/nw=1/rpsv/factbook2009/10/02/01/10-02-01-g1.htm

It’s a separate issue about whether the NHS, the largest single employer in western Europe and a state-owned, verging-on monopoly supplier of healthcare services in Britain, is the best means of providing healthcare services in Britain. On the evidence, it isn’t.

“BRITISH doctors now earn more than their counterparts on the Continent, according to a new study. It has revealed that hospital consultants’ salaries increased by more than 30% between 2000 and 2004. British consultants and GPs are now better off than medical specialists in France, Germany and Denmark.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article758105.ece

In the UK state funded pensions where brought in 1908. State funded education has been available from the late 1800s, but one out of three ain’t bad.