Colette Douglas Home unintentionally identifies the central problem in the economic woes of the UK in her column on community buy-outs when she states that 16 people own 10% of Scotland's land ("Compulsory purchase?

It is more like legalised theft", The Herald, April 23).

This skewed distribution is also present in the distribution of real wealth; it is not a recent phenomenon but simply the logical and predictable outcome of both the hereditary class system and the capitalist style of economy.

Possession of real wealth is becoming progressively polarised by systems which are specifically designed to achieve that end. There is no shortage of wealth, it is simply in the wrong place.

I may have the money for 100 pairs of shoes but don't need them, while 100 people may need shoes but cannot afford them. The cobbler cannot sell shoes as nobody is buying them and the only winner is me. That is exactly what is wrong in the UK today and it is getting worse as a direct result of Government policy.

We have a form of governance that at the drop of a hat can introduce benefit changes that penalise thousands of citizens yet at the same time fails to make the necessary drastic changes to corporate taxation or tax avoidance by the wealthy. Google rightly points out that it pays little or no corporation tax simply as that is what the rules allow it to do. Successive governments have been aware of this anomaly yet it and the use of overseas tax havens by the rich are both fundamental factors in the polarisation of wealth. Why has this not been addressed with the same vigour and sense of urgency as the poor bashing?

Spread betting in the commodity and shares markets is symptomatic of the rot at the core of how the capitalist consumer society works. The poor in society are being penalised while others will sit back and profit by betting on how much the great unwashed will spend in the supermarket at the weekend. Yet the poor are those who physically generate the wealth and without the co-operation and agreement of the poor money has no actual value.

The Fabian Society suggests that those who have a bigger house should be penalised to mitigate the effects of the bedroom tax when it should be fighting the tax itself, not creating division among fellow workers and strivers.

If the Fabian Society wants to penalise the rich to help the poor I would suggest it first defines who the rich are. Perhaps it could look at the 16 people who own 10% of Scotland as a starting point.

The rich who can live in comfort without going out to do a day's work are a greater blight on society than the poor living off state benefits, many forced to do so by lack of opportunity or a minimum wage that cannot sustain a decent lifestyle without support from other workers' taxes.

If Scotland does gain independence, these 16 people who own a sizeable chunk of Alba will be "foreigners" (most already are) and the people of Scotland will actually own less than 10% of the land. What are you going to do about that Mr Salmond?

David J Crawford,

131 Shuna Street, Glasgow.

Academics have called on the Scottish Government to look at charging higher council tax as a means of easing the impact of the bedroom tax on vulnerable families ("SNP urged to increase council tax to fight cuts", The Herald, April 23).

The SNP's response is to say that this would mean "robbing Peter to pay Paul". But if Peter is benefiting disproportionately from successive years of the freeze on council tax, and Paul is facing a loss of £12 a week from a Jobseeker's Allowance payment of £71.70, might that not be described as redistribution?

The SNP is fond of telling us how committed it is to social democracy and the welfare state, but it seems to have a lopsided view of how we can achieve this. For the SNP it is all spend and nothing on the other side of the balance sheet: no change to council tax, no mansion tax, no changes to personal taxation.

In this article SNP MSP Jamie Hepburn tells people that only independence can deliver the welfare state people want. But as usual there is silence on how this will be funded. Oil revenues seem to be the magic money tree.

So not only are Scots affected by the bedroom tax being told by their Government that nothing much can be done to help them, there is a deafening silence about how these changes will be funded in the event of a vote for independence.

Sheila Gilmore,

MP for Edinburgh East and member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee,

84 Niddrie Mains Road,

Edinburgh.