I don’t get it: the attitude of a lot of people towards those who make a lot of money, that is.
F’rinstance, an article in yesterday’s Mail Online was headlined:
‘Some people can’t even pay their electricity bills!* Crissy Rock slams the ‘obscene’ amounts of money ‘greedy’ I’m a Celeb stars are being paid this year as she joins Jungle Confidential.
Apart from the facts that I had never before heard of Crissy Rock (she is, I learn, an actress), and I’m not interested in watching I’m a Celeb or Jungle Confidential, I found myself in awe of any headline writer who had the brass neck to string that priceless prose together.
The article goes on to hammer home the ‘obscenity’ and ‘greed’ that are apparently inherent in the thrusting of wodges of moolah into the paws of certain people, while others struggle to pay basic living costs. From the article we learn that …
It has been reported that Boy George was paid £500,000 for his time on the show while former Health Secretary Matt Hancock will pocket £400,000 and Mike Tindall will leave with £265,000.
So what?
If these people were not paid these amounts would it make any difference whatsoever to the plight of those in need?
And if it is wrong to pay these sums, is it also wrong to pay large salaries to some other entertainers?
I learn, for example, that the highest paid footballer in the UK’s Premier League this season, a gentleman called Kevin De Bruyne at Manchester City, earns £400,000 per week. And the guy way down at Number 10 in the footballer list, Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford, has to make do with just £300,000 per week.
So what are these snipes at people getting money really about? (Although the Mail Online article refers to a single instance, it is a supposed ‘fault’ that it is often cited.)
If footballers (or any other group of people) were paid less, would that, in and of itself, benefit those in need?
The answer, I submit, is, ‘No, of course not’.
The infinite pot
It really all comes down to the size of the pot. The overall money pot, that is. The “If A gets x, then B loses out’ argument holds good only if the size of the money pot is fixed.
However, it is not fixed. It is growable - infinitely growable.
So what about another aspect of the ‘obscene’, ‘greedy’ argument - the one that argues not just for equality of opportunity but for equality of outcome, a.k.a. equity? Consider the primary question …
Are we all born equal?
The answer to that question is No.
Here’s how Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it:
Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. If they are equal, they are not free.1
Indeed, don’t we rely upon the differences that we exhibit to help solve problems and make progress?
Consider, for example, when a need arose, early on in the digital era, for an online payments system. Here’s an extract from a 2004 keynote speech by Heidi Miller, then Treasury & Securities Services Executive for JP Morgan Chase & Co, at the Sibos2 annual event:
Let me tell you a story about a business acquaintance who runs a successful Silicon Valley e-commerce venture. In the late ‘90s, this company was experiencing explosive growth, and adding thousands of new customers every week. They desperately needed a secure and easy-to-use online payments solution, and they needed it fast.
Quite logically, they approached several banks and asked them to develop a solution. To make a long story short, the banks tried, but simply could not deliver a solution that met this company’s needs and customer requirements effectively.
There’s the problem: a financial services challenge that the banking sector, as it existed at the time, could not solve. Heidi Miller continued:
So the company was forced to turn to another e-commerce start-up that had already developed, piloted and rolled out exactly the solution they were looking for. This business acquaintance is Meg Whitman. The company is eBay. eBay paid over $1 billion to acquire that payments solution provider. It wasn’t a bank. It was PayPal.
Yup, this was the start-up where a couple of the team leaders were Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. They were different. And that’s often what ‘not equal’ means. They had the ‘different capacity’ to see around the corner of the future on this particular occasion. And the rest, as is so often said, is history.
Long live inequity! The alternative, inevitably, is a ‘leveling-down’ and the trashing of any meritocracy. Whereas, supporting merit doesn’t just benefit those at the top of the pile. It benefits those at the bottom, too.
Consider, for example, Marcus Rashford, that tenth highest-paid footballer in the UK who is getting by on £300,000 per week. He has used his position and money to help promote and provide free school means that have helped relieve the pressure on vast numbers of families in need.
So, no, to say that money, in and of itself, is obscene is … hogwash and piffle. It’s not the money. It’s the use that it is put to. And, even if someone gets their hands on a lump sum and keeps every last penny, that does not detrimentally affect the outcomes for other, less well off people.
Thanks for reading.
Ernest, Jack R. Remarks on Anarchism, Volume 2 (2021)
Google search: “Sibos is the financial services event of the year, organised by Swift. The annual conference and exhibition connects thousands of executives, decision makers and thought leaders from across the industry.”
One thing I've come to realize over the years is that some (many? a majority?) of adults are, in some respects, still children mentally. Perhaps we all are, to a greater or lesser extent? It's a phenomenon easy to overlook, because people do all the grown-up things; go to work, drive a car, have children of their own ... but are still capable of great childishness or immaturity.
My point is this: Much of what passes for contemporary, progressive policies and moral pieties are incredibly simplistic and foolish. It is childish thinking. Equity = "Mummy! Mummy! Peter got four biscuits and I got only three! It's not fair!" Not only childish thinking, but the urges of a narcissistic, egotistical, vicious little brat! "If you disagree with me you are evil and I will have you punished."
I see childish people everywhere. It's enervating.
Still ... have a nice weekend!