Is the Welfare State financially viable today?

A columnist for the U.K. "Telegraph" writes,

The truly fundamental question that is at the heart of the disaster toward which we are [all] racing is being debated only in America: Is it possible for a free market economy to support a democratic socialist society?

That's a great question, though it's still a bit wide of the mark. It should be,

Can any form of government support a socialist society (welfare state)?

Let me explain.

Marx's militant socialism offered a very attractive alternative to the then-prevailing capitalist/industrialist-vs.-workers model. At least it was attractive to workers, who Marx ostensibly regarded as the most important component of society.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, the crowned heads of Europe were scared witless that those heads could end up on pikes if the revolutionary flames came their way. To head off that prospect they adopted government programs that gave the benefits of socialism to everyone, without requiring a revolution.

Neat idea, huh.

The same thing happened in the U.S.

I know the Social Security folks made a big show of doing the math to compute the tax rate needed for the assumed benefits, but not sure if there were any efforts made to do the math in Europe back when nations were adopting the welfare state to head off revolution. Certainly Marx didn't want to bother with any math, since a) it was harder than writing rousing demonizations of capitalists; and b) it might have shown the whole venture to be financially unworkable.

And the governments that adopted socialism peacefully didn't bother because their leaders were simply doing whatever they thought was needed to keep their heads attached to their necks. So I'm not sure how much objective, rigorous math has been done on the financial viability of the welfare state that socialism claims is everyone's absolute right.

Moreover, any early analysis would have used a population growth rate much higher than we have today.

And that's the big wild-card: the shape of the population pyramid. Back when socialism was first introduced, the average family had five kids. Today the average family has less than two kids, and we're almost to zero growth.

Back when Marx was working his class-warfare evil, the welfare state would have had many more workers to carry the burden. But when a country nears ZPG, the ratio of workers to retirees falls dramatically, so to be financially solvent the system requires taxation levels that will almost certainly be unacceptable to workers.

Of course the demographers at the Social Security Administration have been saying for decades that SS is headed for insolvency for exactly this reason. I've just never heard anyone take the next logical step to prove that when a nation approaches zero population growth, the welfare state becomes non-viable regardless of the system of government.