How much wealth is acceptable?

Kohoutek

Marine_life wrote: »

I have always believed that the challenge is that in any society achieving equality is impossible as there will inevitably be spenders and savers and it would be unjust in the extreme if society were to prevent that welath being passed from generation to generation.

Why would you ever strive for total income or wealth equality anyway? There will be always people that work hard and deserve to earn more that don't. What incentive would there be to generate economic activity if all wealth or income was equalised?

Loughton_Monkey

Ilya_Ilyich wrote: »

I personally believe that it is immoral to ignore the poverty and destitution of others and enrich oneself; I would say that anyone living above the minimum level required to support themself is acting immorally while there are still people unable to support themselves........

So by owning a computer - which is not necessary for a minimum level of survival, you are as morally bankrupt as the rest of us. So why preach what you clearly don't practice?

Ilya_Ilyich wrote: »

I believe something like double-triple the minimum income 'should' be sufficient for anyone but it would in practice be almost impossible to transition to something like that from the current system without revolution.

So now you contradict yourself. Either your 3X income is 'moral' and therefore minimum level then how are the people on one third going to live? On the other hand, if their income is minimum then your 3X is immoral by your own definition above.

There are millions of people living on, say, the equivalent of £20 a week. That's a huge proportion of Africans, Indians and some Chinese.........

So even going with your ludicrous 3X theory, what are you advocating? A 100% tax on all UK income above £60 a week. £3,000 a year. The balance - not required for infrastructure - can be used for foreign aid.

Will this be positive or negative for the world economy. Discuss!

ILW

I would suspect that II is a student and will at some point wake up the the realities of life after a year or two in the real world.

Cleaver

Marine_life wrote: »

The events of the weekend and the protests got me thinking about societies attitudes to wealth and what is acceptable.

For instance - is it acceptable to earn more than the national average wage and if so by how much? and how much work should you do for that money? Compare someone who earns the national average wage and works 40 hours a week with someone who works twice as many hours but who earns four times as much?

We live in a capitalist society, so I think it's very difficult to answer these questions. I could decide to gamble my entire savings pot over the next 12 months on AIM shares, get very lucky, and possibly 'earn' enough to become a very wealthy person. I've not really done any hard work as such, I've just either got lucky or shown an incredible amount of financial competence (the latter is what I'd tell people). Is this acceptable? Obviously this is an extreme example.

In terms of what people earn, and for how much work, surely the market needs to decide this? If a company opts to employ me in a role that pays three times the national average wage for 40 hours per week they obviously feel that they need to pay this amount to attract someone with the level of competence and experience to do the job. Otherwise they'd pay a lower rate. I don't think you can put a cap on this amount, it just is what it is.

Marine_life wrote: »

Also, there is a disturbing trends towards society being judgemental about certain professions e.g. the "all bankers are scum" brigade. But where does it end? Who decides what a noble profession it?

It's an interesting question. I personally feel that people get a bit mixed up between blaming bankers when it's maybe the culture we should be looking at. For example, if a very competent (or lucky...) trader makes £30m profit in a year through trading, then in principle I don't have a problem with that trader getting a bonus of £1m. What I do have a problem with is that bank allowing that trader to gamble with money that, if lost, could bring down the bank, therefore requiring a bailout by the tax payer. But that's two different things I guess.

I'm not an economist, so maybe Generali can tell me why this might not work, but I would introduce a law that seperates retail / household / business banking and the investment banking. I.e., make them two different and distinct companies. Therefore people's bank accounts and savings accounts would be safe, and the investment bank would be free to gamble, speculate and pay bonus to its heart content.

In terms of a 'noble' profession, does it matter anymore? A company decides what to pay its employees, normally benchmarked against an industry standard, and that's about it.

Marine_life wrote: »

The problem therefore is we all drive at different speeds and what constitutes a lunatic or an idiot is different for each of us. I worry however that if my next car is a Range Rover someone else will decide for me that it is not acceptable.

In a free market economy I have no problem whatsoever with anyone earning anything for any hours of work. That's a deal between the employee and the employer. We have an agreement that higher earners pay more tax and, presumably, when they spend their high wages they contribute more to the economy.

However, I have some issues with some public sector wages where it isn't a real market (but these are just personal opinion), bail outs for banks and some of the salaries they then pay and some of the tax avoidance by high earning inviduals. But then these are all different cases.

Conrad

I'm a tory capitalist type, but I often get a lot of stick for my view that no one needs more than £2m in total asset wealth including thier main home.

It bothers me that passive hand clapping viewers celebrate the lives of already very wealthy people such as Sting, Ben Elton, Lenny Henry, Paul McCartney, David Dimblby (£3.5m pa from the Beeb!), Piers Morgan, Helen Mirren etc.

Adding to my unease is the thought these people when giving interviews are only doing so to promote thier latest work AND MAKER THEM EVEN RICHER. Think about what this means - they're ensnaring of a greater pool of wealth and resource, means less is available for those that have nothing.


How can this be justified when millions starve right now?
I celebrate people that attain a certain level of welath and then dedicate the bulk of thier time to charity, in particular charity that seeks to help those least able to help themselves and in that I include wildlife.

In a thousand years I suspect we will look back on wealth over - hoarders with some distain.

Cleaver

Ilya_Ilyich wrote: »

the idea that "I am well off because I work hard, the poor man is poor because he is lazy so he doesn't deserve my help, the rich man is rich because he works hard so he deserves special treatment" is infectious yet patently false

This is rubbish in my humble opinion.

Pretty much all studies show that intelligent, hard working, industrious, competent, skilled people earn more than people who aren't all of those things. Which is pretty obvious really, as if you owned a company, which type of person would you employ?

However, I understand the point you make, which is that people from disadvantaged backgrounds can face barriers when trying to progress in life, especially in terms of work. For example, if your parents are white collar workers with plenty of cash then you probably have more factors growing up that help you: parents who encourage you to study, can help you at uni, can provide you with work experience through their contacts, help you get that first job etc. etc.

However, whilst this is a factor that can't be ignored, it's not the main aspect to this argument. We live in a country where we couldn't really do much more to try and help people from diverse or disadvantaged backgrounds. Yes, there are still some barriers, but the vast majority of people in 2011 have pretty much equal opportunities. So to say again, intelligent, hard working, pleasant people will tend to earn more than those that aren't all those things. And that's just life.

Kohoutek

Conrad wrote: »

In a thousand years I suspect we will look back on wealth over - hoarders with some distain.

Why? There were the equivalents of the multi-millionaires or billionaires of today one thousand years ago.

The largest "wealth over-hoarders" in this country one thousand years ago are still with us...they live in a palace in Westminster....

Conrad

Cleaver wrote: »

pleasant people will tend to earn more than those that aren't all those things. And that's just life

From my view 'pleasant' people get to a certain level and then spend all / most of thier time helping the needy. Simply piling up an over share of resource is a pointless meaningless endavour.

I know a few very rich types who spend the bulk of thier time playing golf - how utterly pointless and 1 dimensional. By all means play a few times a week, but surely spare a good amount of time for those with nothing - I don't mean feather bedded British benefit dependants btw.

Conrad

Kohoutek wrote: »

Why? There were the equivalents of the multi-millionaires or billionaires of today one thousand years ago.

The largest "wealth over-hoarders" in this country one thousand years ago are still with us...they live in a palace in Westminster....

The moral zietgeist moves on. We used to let children work 12 hours per day in factories.
Resource hoarding against a background where children live in boxes in Manilla and many other places, is pretty immoral.

£2m inc' your home is all a Man needs to live free and happy. The rest should be spent on hapless helpless children, Romainian abandoned babies, Orangutans etc.

Cleaver

Conrad wrote: »

£2m inc' your home is all a Man needs to live free and happy. The rest should be spent on hapless helpless children, Romainian abandoned babies, Orangutans etc.

You'd need quite a few bedrooms to house all of those things though, as I wouldn't want to mix the orangutans in with the babies.