HPC Head of Research Luke Hildyard debates inequality with Anthony Browne of the British Bankers Association
This year ‘fatcat Wednesday’ took place on January 8. Just three working days into 2014, the bosses of Britain’s top companies had made more money in the year than the average UK worker will earn over the full 12 months.
As queues for food banks lengthen and ordinary people struggle with rising costs, the public are becoming increasingly appalled at the widening gap between the super-rich and everybody else. A society where multi-millionaire bosses get a 14 per cent pay rise while wages for ordinary workers have stagnated for a decade cannot be sharing its resources in a fair, sensible or efficient way.
We are becoming two countries, a super-rich elite, largely based in London and the South-East, versus a broader population struggling to make ends meet. Such a divided society cannot hope to thrive, or even survive, in the long-term.
Bankers and big business constantly argue that the super-rich are talented ‘wealth creators’ whose success benefits the rest of us. But these people are not Gods. At a major bank, for example, the star bankers depend on thousands of cleaners, secretaries, administrators and branch staff to ensure the company is functioning each morning when they get to work.
Top executives rely on roads and railways to transport their products, schools and universities to train and educate their employees and customers, government research to help develop better technology. All of this is paid for by ordinary taxpayers. Wealth is created collectively, not by one or two hotshots at the top.
Nobody is saying everyone should be paid the same, but if someone can earn in under three days what most people make in a year then surely a better balance is needed?
(This article originally appeared in the North West Evening Mail, alongside a blog by Anthony Browne of the British Bankers’ Association)