Pay Equality

Via Tom Harris, a staggering quote that could almost been spoken by one of the antagonists in Atlas Shrugged:

"The crisis we find ourselves in is one significantly caused by greed. The salaries of those at the top raced away while the median wage stagnated. Inequality grew, and an economic crisis ensued. The unjust rewards of a few hundred 'masters of the universe' exacerbated the risks we were all exposed to many times over. Banking and executive remuneration packages have reached excessive levels. We believe now is the time for government to take decisive action."

Read the whole article. It is insane. The ideological redundancy of the left is brought into sharp relief by this outmoded, out of date pile of toss. The recession - a perfectly natural downturn in the economic cycle - was not created by greed. And it won't be aided by the government dictating what privately owned companies can and can't pay their employees.

Tom Harris - a Labour MP - is against this. The incumbent Chancellor of the Exchequer - a man who has done a vast amount to alter the balance of our mixed economy in favour of the government - is against this. Quite rightly so as well. Because as soon as people start embracing this sort of rhetoric, they start on the terrible descent towards a Stalinist style command economy. That creates equality not through enabling people to achieve all they can with their lives, but by slowly yet remorselessly dragging everyone down to the same level. Oh, and by creating an utterly stagnant economy at the same time. 

Many moons ago, political debate used to focus on the relationship between the Church and the state. Now the debate must centre on the relationship between the state and the economy, and the state and the private individual. The sort of policies espoused by Compass in this instance are an alarming call for more state intervention in both the lives of its citizens and the economy at a time when government should just be moving in the opposite direction. And these policies represent the politics of financial jealousy. The angry, petulant sulking of those who want to earn the same as a CEO or business executive, but aren't prepared to do the work to earn it fairly. 

The government should take decisive action. It should ignore Compass when it talks utter rubbish like this.