The Rich According to the Guardian

[Judy1234]

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/aug/04/workandcareers.executivesalaries

IorekByrnison-

So many thoughts on this subject.

Just pointing out that we tend to mix/confuse absolute and relative poverty. Policy makers/politicians should be keeping an eye on both.

I am also pointing out that we can make ourselves unhappy by comparing ourselves to people who are better off. Sometimes we forget to reflect on how lucky most of us are in the UK.

Indeed some of the social breakdown that we see in UK/US is due to young people looking at the lifestyles/toys of the well-off and saying "I want to have that too" when infact they aren't starving or anything close.

I am not trying to take a side, just making a couple of observations. Sorry, I am that kind of bloke- i like to observe and make tangential comments .

Jesus. It is the degree of inequality that is the issue, ftr. You don't have to be Chairman Mao to feel that there is something wrong when in an extremely rich country like the UK there are people struggling to keep their disabled children alive in the winter because of fuel poverty (see riven's post earlier), while the richest do everything in their power to pay as little tax as possible and governments bend over backwards to accommodate them.

I don't totally agree. We can all be equally poor as in many countries. what good would that do?

Don't the capitalist argue that you need to allow wealth creation and this creates spin off benefits for the entire state? I visited the Soviet Union when they were all equally poor (I was a socialist in my youth) and I am not sure that they got that right.

I think that you have to keep an eye on absolute poverty as well as inequality and the inter-relationship. Sounds like a PhD thesis but you can ignore either.

Good post ToughDaddy. I agree that is's particularly symptomatic of the younger generation. I come across a lot of young people who feel that they are somehow 'owed' more by 'society'. Never mind the fact that materially they are way better off than any generation previously. I was talking to a group of young people recently and their language was really interesting too. 'They' should give us more money, 'They' should give us X,Y,Z'. When I asked who 'They' is, the kids just looked at me blanky. They obviously imagine some bottomless purse.

SOME of the poverty I see in the UK is poverty of aspiration and mind set. Some of it is due to access/un-equal opportunities. Material poverty is an issue but perhaps the former two are atleast as urgent?

'SOME of the poverty I see in the UK is poverty of aspiration and mind set.' - absolutely true.

• keep your observations and tangential comments coming ToughDaddy! You're spot on!

i have to say i don't know whether to laugh or cry over the idea that the poor should 'go to church more often' to be happy about their lot. That kind of shows a rather muddled understanding of what Jesus Christ was about. He was about social justice and equality, not about poor people being grateful for what they have.

I think this has been a really interesting and substantial thread, on the whole.

oh god riven please if you ever get to that point this winter come on MN and tell us so we can do something about it.

Oh, I hate that euphamism 'wealth creation'. It's just a dressed up way of saying 'making money', as if there is something inherently noble about those spivs in the City.

oops, horrid spelling mistake there, should be euphemism, of course!

Why is 'wealth creation' a dressed up way of saying 'making money'? I don't read it as a euphemism at all. Yes, they mean exactly the same thing. And why is making money a bad thing?

Where does Jesus state 'quite explicitly' that rich people aren't going to heaven?

I'm not arguing a Christian pov at all, just interested in where there is any historical evidence that Jesus said that. I know there is teaching about it being difficult for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of heaven, but I don't recall Jesus saying anywhere that rich people won't get in!

I'm afraid JC was pretty hardcore about giving up one's wealth, hard for all of us to stomach in our Capitalist normality. We should really all be giving up everything a la St Francis [previously a wealthy nobleman] but of course we don't. Having said that there are other bits in the Bible that demonstrate it is not money itself that is evil, it is what you do with it.

Mark Chapter 10, Verse 24, Jesus said "Children how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

'They dress it up as a social good which it isn't. Inequality is divisive and damages society.

You've got to wonder what sort of values these people were taught by their parents when they can come out with such disgusting attitudes about being greedy and about the less well off than them'

I am not sure who 'they' and 'these people' refers to. It is very easy to throw out criticisms at faceless people. I haven't seen a single person on this thread who says they don't care about less well off people.

'Inequality is divisive and damages society.'- this is a huge statement. I think there is some truth in it, but it's dangerous to just accept it at face value. Inequality is inevitable. This is one of Xenia's points which comes up regularly, and she's absolutely correct. Some people are cleverer than others. Some people are better looking. So inequality exists. Whether it is damaging is a separate issue. Yes, in some circumstances it can be. But ultimately we are all unique individuals arent we? If you put everyone in our society at the same starting point, gave everyone the exact same amount of money to start with, very rapidly, people would make individual choices and then inequalities would develop. Some people would spend their money on fags and booze. Some would use it to be creative. Some would happily pay other people to do jobs for them. Some people would be prepared to work hard; others wouldnt. We can all point to people who are better or worse off than us, but this doesnt mean there is anything wrong about it. My friend along the road feels worse off than I am, but that's partly because she chose to have 4 children compared to my 3, and she works part time compared to my full time. If the roles were reversed, then I would be relatively less well off. You can describe that as inequality or you can describe it as choice.

Wasn't there also a parable about talents? (Talents being a unit of currency in those days). The one about investing your talents so that they grow?

parables aren't literally about the things they describe, they represent something else. The parable of the talents is about risk, risking losing everything to gain a better spiritual understanding, not really about making money. Or perhaps Christ was really advocating playing with the stockmarket...

It is dangerous to just accept the broad statement that inequality is damaging for the reasons I describe above. If you just accept that inequality is damaging, the only logical conclusion is that society should strive to make everyone equal.
So, would you be happy for everyone to receive exactly the same wage, whether the job they do is low stress and doesnt require qualifications, or whether it is hugely stressful and specialised? Would you be happy for everyone to be forced to live in exactly the same size/type of house so that no one has a nicer house than anyone else? And if you have a child that has a sporting or musical talent, forget any idea of getting specialised coaching for them, because this would then create inequality with their peers. And of course, the state will dictate that everyone can only have a maximum of two children, so if you want to have a larger family, tough luck.
Surely that explains why inequality per se is not a bad thing?

Exactly ruty (well, not sure about the stockmarket bit )
Which is why it is silly to use the pick n mix approach, quoting parables as if they were literally true one moment, and then as a metaphor the next, depending on what you want them to say!