By Joe Cox
Tom Harris’ post this morning referred to a very powerful analogy for New Labour thinking that read as follows:
“There's a terrific scene in the TV adaptation of Chris Mullin’s A Very British Coup in which the newly-elected left wing prime minister, Harry Perkins, is catching the train to London and is asked by a journalist: “Do you intend to abolish first class, Mr Perkins?” To which Perkins replies: “No, I intend to abolish second class. I think everybody’s first class, don’t you?”
Let's take this analogy further. It's not a question of first or second class in today’s Britain. If FTSE 100 CEOs are travelling first class, then those on average wage are travelling 100 classes behind them, and those on minimum wage are 226 classes behind. Indeed the gap between the super rich and the rest of us is so large now that we are unlikely to be on the same train. Highly paid Britain is a runaway train laced with unjust rewards and one that left the station years ago, crashing briefly in 2008, only to continue hurtling towards the next one.
I agree with Tom that success and ambition are valuable qualities but it doesn’t follow that greed or even wealth are part of the same formula. To be the most successful and ambitious teacher, nurse, postal worker, volunteer or activist is a noble aim, but it is unlikely to make you wealthy.
Tom then goes on to say that New Labour said “it was okay to want a better job, a higher income, nicer holidays, a bigger house.”
But New Labour’s essential message, encouraging people to ‘earn and own’ needs to be fundamentally changed. Lord Mandelson said back in 1998 that "we (Labour) are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. Let Labour be the Party to now say that greed is not good, greed is bad.
The New Labour ideology that Tom describes relies on an atomistic view of human beings, a (small c) conservative one in which we are not working together but are merely rational, selfish beings. If you believe people to be fundamentally selfish, atomistic, rational wealth maximisers, then people may become richer, but no happier.
While the minimum wage is a hugely welcome floor, it does little to tackle the real distributional issues and huge inequalities of wealth in Britain. The growing gap between high earners and the rest of society is politically, socially and economically damaging.
We urgently need a High Pay Commission to instigate an evidence and fact based investigation into the effects of excessive pay on our economy and society, as well as to come up with concrete solutions to tackle it. If you want to reduce inequality in society, you have to curb the excesses at the very top. Doing nothing is not an option.
As for the accusation that this initiative would secure our core vote – Labour has lost over 4 million voters since 1997, it needs to get them back from somewhere. That said, I think there is equally middle class anxiety: the Mail, Express and the Telegraph have all been scathing over city bonuses and the excesses of the super-rich.
I believe dealing with high pay can appeal to both Labour’s traditional and non-traditional supporters, but I will finish along a similar note to Tom by saying that without the core vote, Labour may as well write off the next election.
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Bravo. HIre a bunch of over-paid wonks to preside over high pay. This gets better and better. More please.
your type of idiot politics is dead. and your type of immature analysis has no traction in the real world.
Having read your bio on the Compass website its an impressive array of non-jobs and Westminster internships. You seem never to have worked in a productive job in your short life so we can put a lot of this nonsense down to youth and inexperience and reading too many of the wrong sort of books. Just two points though:
1 what other people are paid is none of your business. Sorry to be so blunt but it isnt. Its between them, their employers and the owners of the business. That may not appeal to your socialist feelings but tough
2 if any Government was mad enough to adopt your plan then lots of Executives would simply move their bsuinbesses abroad to more friendly environments - taking many of your members jobs with them. Yes I know that's terrible but its a harsh world out there and for every Compass member / worker in the UK there are 100 Chinese or Indians keen, able and often better educated and skilled waiting in the wings of the Global Economy for a chance to work. And after all your stated aim as an organisation is to promote equality intrenationally so perhaps that may not be a bad thing
So it's just pure ad hominem attacks for you is it?
Salaries are regulated in other companies: the people at the 'top' are replaceable (that's why they are so often replaced); and they will not get jobs elsewhere.
If they want to go to work in the US, why not let them try?
Again you miss the point. The decision on salary isnt yours to expropriate. It's none of your business or the governments business. Its not your money or your choice
Labour in Scotland is promoting son of poll tax to replace council tax - guess who that is going to hit worst?
Just how stupid is Labour becoming? The legacy of Hardy and MacLean is the creation of equal opportunity for all and not 'everyone is the same'. Just where in any of the comments today in a few of the blogs is the need for equal opportunity to be addressed by Labour, rather than driving everyone down to the lowest common denominator?
Why do we need an investigation since you have pre-judged the outcome?
Or was it, "A government that impoverishes Paul to enrich Peter is incentivising Peter to be more entrepreneurial"?
Things are very very simple, Joe. You will not get your hands within a hundred miles of the money that you hope to take to spend as you see fit. The reality is simply this. Increase taxes against a minority of people, and those wealth creators will be gone. Gone to a country that does not believe that they have the right to take disproportionate amounts from their earnings.
What is it with the Labour that makes it believe that they can put their hands into the pockets of people who are no "one of us'?
Even worse, you are proposing it in order to curry favour with the electorate. Desperate stuff. And lets not forget that inequality has GROWN thanks to your party. Epic...
If you were to take a bee hive and marginally handicap the most productive worker bees, to give the least productive bees a better chance of producing more honey, then instead the whole system would produce less honey. The whole hive would be less well off. The hive could not afford to feed as many grubs to the same standard of living.
If, however, you were, to improve conditions for the hive as a whole, then more honey would be produced and more grubs could be looked after to a higher standard.
Finally - if you were to compare the technical effort of marginally handicapping the most productive bees versus improving conditions for the whole hive (moving it nearer a better source of pollen)- you would find that you spent more energy handicapping productive bees and achieving counter productive results, than if you had attempted to help the whole hive in the first place.
i.e. Making the UK a competitive environment for inward investment, will have a greater beneficial effect on poverty and inequality than capping high earners salaries.
The trickle down of wealth to the working class (who do the real work) is dwarfed by the huge obscene increases in wealth at the top. Much better have a more equal society & slower growth rate that results in the majority being better off.
At least the millions of white collar workers now know that they aren't doing "real work".
I must point out to everyone on the platform waiting for the 8:04 every day into London that we aren't doing "real work".
I'm sure we will all see the error of our ways and immediately all vounteer to be dustmen etc.
I have already moved my business to Zug in Switzerland where I was welcomed with open arms and now pay tax at 17%. As do my employees. I'm happy, they're happy and Zug is happy. My clients are happy (I'm cheaper now), their clients are happy and their shareholders are happy.
No wonder socialists hate choice.
So the issue is - why have this labour government created this situation and what makes you think they can fix it?
It would be only a short period of time before you were tempted to start involving yourself with not just the "super-rich" but also CEOs, then Directors and then those "well-off". Already we have punitive taxation at the £100,000 pa and £150,000 pa mark. What would happen at those levels? I find it hard to believe that a lot of the left-wing posters on LL would be able to resist meddling at the £100k pa mark as well.
In the end my salary is a private matter between myself and my employer. It should not be any business of the state and politicians should not seek to get involved. Given that basis, I believe even at the top salary level you have no business or right to meddle.
If someone in society earns less then let them train and educate themselves to earn more. If their profession is not as well paid then that is their choice. I earn less than a banker but more than a teacher. It was my choice to enter the career path I am in and I do not need socialist interference thanks.
We need to seize the moment and drive home the argument for higher taxation and limits to excessive pay levels.
The Mandelson quote "we are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" is the fundamental foundation of New Labour's bogus Tory-based ideology. There is no sign of him retracting or apologising for the remark. How can anyone in our party can take him seriously? Labour's own Gordon Gekko - "Greed is good". Shame.
But those who voted Labour in 1997 were not Labour's core vote.