Yet again the colossal scale of city bonuses is back in the news, with the Guardian reporting that this year they have reached a mind-boggling £14 billion ("City bonuses hit record high with £14bn payout"). Immediately George Monbiot is on the case ("How the neoliberals stiched up the wealth of nations for themselves"), claiming that such inequality is part of a broader capitalist agenda blamed for everything from mass homelessness to the breakup of the welfare state.

In fact these issues may not be as related as Monbiot suggests. While huge bonuses do seem somewhat obscene, the media furore surrounding them obscures two more important points. The first is that in terms of social breakdown, the gap between the super-rich and the average is far less important than the gap between the average and the super-poor. The second is that, while huge bonuses do not in themselves take money away from the less well-off, the failure to tax them does.

Thus the more important issues may be those of tax evasion and, particularly topically, corporation tax. This is brought into sharp relief by today's FT's leader, "A third of UK's biggest businesses pay no tax ". Not only is corporation tax ineffectively enforced - it is spread out inequitably between companies, failing to incentivise or reward socially beneficial practise. Moreover, an oft-overlooked area in which greater international co-operation is needed is the fight against tax evasion, with tax havens draining money away from the countries in which the wealth is created. Admist all of this, the true obscenity looks like the Conservatives' recent plans to actually lessen corporation tax.

Thus social evils cannot all be put down to the simple existence of the capitalist system. To decry the high-earners from the sidelines for their moral depravity won't help anyone on the ground. We must accept that of course business and its high-earners will be self-seeking and profit-driven, but find more efficient ways to harness that profit for the public good by taxing it more effectively.

Also in today's news:

• Nick Clegg has been previewing the Lib Dems immigration debate to be held in Brighton this autumn. ("Call for selective amnesty for illegal migrants')
• Lembit Opik has been arguing that his appointment Shadow Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Secretary does not mean that the Lib Dems don't take the subject seriously. ("Opik says UK Lib Dems serious about business")