However, good directors should understand the feelings of those at the coalface and earn their respect. The problem is that too many directors are managers and are unable to earn the respect of those at the coalface.

A few years back, I saw an economic survey of Germany – as I recall it, the average income in Berlin was €18,000p.a., which means that the median Berliner earnt considerably less than, say, their equivalent in South Shields, where the median salary was £14,841 in 2006. (This is before the GBP decided to head for parity with the Euro, of course.)

Unfortunately your idea doesn’t really work if a company needs hierarchy to operate.

Engineering is a prime example of a hierarchical workforce in its very nature. You have your Chartered Engineers (Masters level understanding) at the top, looking after a team of Incorporated Engineers (Batchelor level), who themselves have teams of qualified technicians (usually HNDs) and unqualified technicians/apprentices who do the grunt work. Each level has a purpose, and whilst the final product may be made by the hands of the bottom rung, it wouldn’t be possible without the top rung.

It all works very nicely, but it also accessible, anybody who wants to but the leg work in can get to the top of the tree if they have the drive; Masters degrees in engineering are not exactly handed out without a very high level of knowledge.

This structure is also present in the medical field, Doctors and Nurses are all part of the same team, with different skill sets, but to say you can just let the Nurses run the hospital because ‘they do all the real work’ misses the point entirely.

This is true of so many industries, and to think you can just sweep this away and everything would work brilliantly is a gross misunderstanding.

Representation of the lowest level at the highest level however is important, as issues ‘on the ground’ (or as we say in the rail industry, ‘at the coal face’) are very different to the regional/national/international issues faced at the very top. I think the key point is that both sides often forget that.

Aren’t we forgetting the massive economic shock of integrating East Germany? The after-effects of which are without modern precedent. Germany’s last 20-years make any comparison with the UK complicated.

I seem to remember West Germany doing pretty well. And Munich, Hamburg and Berlin make any British city you choose to mention look a bit shabby.

“to identify the investment opportunities most likely to provide strong long-term returns”

Nor, on an admitedly quick search is there any suggestion that they have been playing fast and loose with their investments. So what are you getting at?

Just look up Invesco perpetual.

Erm…. your honestly saying that pension funds don’t invest on a long term strategic basis? What time scale would you consider long term then, 5,000 years?

Part of the solution is wider share ownership – but that generally doesn’t play well with the left, or indeed the right.

I’m as left as can be I believe – and I agree with your point.

If the companies where there are shareholders were held by people rather than just pension funds, then things would be different.

This being the main problem then you could legislate that only a certain amount of a company could be held in this way. Companies are being invested in to glean short term profit rather than long term strategy – all good for the pension firms etc – dire for the long term economy.

Your reason for saying so?

I know what you mean, but I think the small shareholder will never hold that much power. It is all the big institutional investers who have the clout. They are the ones who should take a huge part of the blame for the banking problems. They are the major owners of these firms and they had no idea what was going on.

a) Most shareholders are institutional – headed by boards who are (or will one day be) on the same gravy train

b) When things are going well no one is intersted, the last fat cat scandal happened in the wake of the 90-92 recession

As you say the whole thing is a merry go round closed shop of greed and vested interest
Part of the solution is wider share ownership – but that generally doesn’t play well with the left, or indeed the right.

Bullshit. workers at the bottom are allowed to fail. They get the sack .

The trouble with the huge wages that the boss’s get is it means there is no incentive to do a good job. Why bother when you have got a nice contract. The money is so huge that you will never need to work again. Everything is about getting the job with the huge salary and bonus and pension. Not about doing the job. British boardrooms are full of the same old faces, who just rotate from one cushy freebee to another.

These people are never subjected to a bit of stick it is all carrot. It should be quite clear to anyone now with half a brain that these huge salaries don’t attract the best people they just attack the greediest people.

One could say that a surgeon should consult a cleaner . An incompetent surgeon consulting an incompetent cleaner would not make the situation better.

People from all backgrounds should be able to rise to decision making positions in all sorts of sectors that are presently closed to much of the working class. And as much as companies would benefit from change, it is hard not to notice that politics is signalling as clearly as possible that it is best to go the other way.

Campaign roles nowadays generally require a masters degree (very expensive to get) and experience interning (so unpaid) for a politician. That second one is particularly key in detering young people from outside of london.

And given that working in the Westminster Village is the main route into candidacy as an MP – we should probably recognise a growing problem in the public as well as commercial realm. Things will get even worse too, if Unions cut ties to Labour.

Better get rid of hierarchical corporate structure, and have all the workers run the company themselves: use balanced job complexes, and apportion all shares on the basis of duration worked at the company. What if it gets too big for that to be practical? There is such a thing as too big, as we are in the process of learning … never mind too big to fail, too big to exist in the first place.