Alteranatively: The highly paid professions tend to be those which historically served the interests of the wealthy and were therefore opportunistically able to charge high fees (eg lawyers, accountants, bankers) because their clients were wealthy and expeted to pay hightly for their services. Over time they create entry barriers (qualifications, regulations, etc) to protect their position and it gradually becomes socially accepted that barristers are “worth” more than plumbers and so on.

Quite where the £80 an hour plumber fits into that I’m not sure.

So if there was job which required certain skills and thus had a smaller pool of applicants that everyone applied for, compared to an unskilled job with a large pool of applicants that no-one wanted to do; it’s ‘right’ that the former should have a higher salary than the later because anyone could do the unskilled job they just don’t want to?

So who got to define which skills earn the big bucks

I don’t think anyone is saying the poorest shouldn’t have TVs, but if they have TVs worth £200 (or less, I got mine for £175 on ebay and I’m not poor in any meaningful way) and those substantially better off have TVs worth £1500, then the richer people pay 7.5 times more VAT on that item, which is a lot more progressive than many other taxes, and a cut would be less progressive than simply raising the tax-free income allowance and related benefits.

As for VAT on tampons, car seats, fruit juice, and so on, welcome to the European Union. I am probably in a minority of one on this website in thinking we should ignore them and do as we see fit with our own tax system, but there we are – our membership of the EU and adherence to its rules are an accepted fact of political life, it seems futile to complain about the consequences of that if nobody is prepared to look at the cause.

@WIll (38): Putting bits in bold doesn’t negate the point that even if we shifted to that type of society there will still be a perceived hierarchy – the person managing fertiliser spreading will be ‘less’ than the person sitting in an office counting strawberries. To put it another way if you were paid more to shovel shit would you raise your child to do the same or would you aim for them to earn less counting strawberries? One job has potential growth prospects the other doesn’t. So still with the ‘I ain’t doing that’ attitude.

At the moment these comments seem to be focussed on income and ignoring social pressure which has to be taken into account in any discussion on inequality. Until society perceives the refuse collector as being as socially important as the brain surgeon regardless of the wage there’s never going to be equality.

Pagar – Thanks. Can’t help on baseball. A bit of a blindspot on US sports: a world unto themselves.

There is an editorial in Wednesday’s Guardian about this research

Inequality: ends and means
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/24/tax-credits-inequality-fabian

“The minimum wage gives some control over rewards at the bottom end; new thought must be given to how pressure can be applied on pre-tax pay at the top end too. Procurement, industrial support and, above all, example are ways in which ministers could have an effect”.

And I especially like Sunder’s comments — the reason the third way as envsioned by Clinton and Blair worked was they touched upon the challenges as well as the aspirations of the middle class.

Sunder – excellent points

You could argue, of course, that some of these things aren’t essential – but why should people on low incomes be reduced to living only on what is absolutely essential? That’s one definition of relative poverty.

I wouldn’t have a problem with VAT if it were charged only on genuine luxuries. But a cursory glance at the above list shows that it’s charged on plenty of essentials (clothes, tampons, fridges, car seats) and lots of things that are necessary for a reasonable standard of living.

Apologies, I did miss that and take back my previous comment, I’m glad you agree with the idea of at least some headway in to inequality…I’m assuming you also see that whatever Labour’s abysmal record on furthering education that if money was able to be spent properly that it would be wise to do so.

Hi Lee

On my original post I said that

“Regarding inequality, there is also a consensus that children should have access to a level of education that will allow them to fulfill their potential and provide them with the opportunity to make the best of their lives.”

What is dispiriting is that, despite large sums of money having been being poured into education, we still seem to be miles away from the objective. Another post perhaps.

Sunder/Don

I am impressed and humbled by your knowledge of the Bundesliga. I know nothing about it and am prepared to accept that I am entirely wrong.

How are you on baseball?

but to take the pagar/don discussion 57@58 about the football analogy, a subject on which I claim a particular interest.

Yes, you could be wrong about German football (though your point about domestic competitiveness in a European/global context is well exemplified by the Bundesliga/Premiership contrast). In this case, there may need to be fair rules (eg on club debt) at a pan-European level to protect the integrity of the game.

The Times May 25, 2009
Bundesliga shows English how to put pleasure before business
Gabriele Marcotti

…. It was a fitting finale to what was arguably the most exciting domestic campaign in Europe. The Bundesliga offered up myriad compelling storylines this year: from tiny Hoffenheim’s impressive rise – and stunning collapse, although they did finish a creditable seventh – to Hertha Berlin’s unlikely title run;from Jürgen Klinsmann’s sacking at Bayern to Magath announcing in April that he would leave Wolfsburg at the end of the season, come what may.

All this against the backdrop of the most free-scoring leading league in Europe – with 2.92 goals per game – and the best-attended. Indeed, in the penultimate week of the season, the Bundesliga averaged 50,959 spectators across its nine matches. To put this in context, only three Barclays Premier League clubs drew as many as 50,000 in any game this season.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/gabriele_marcotti/article6355548.ece

And to a degree you’re ignoring that some level of inequality economically also translates in to inequality of opportunity. I don’t think that you need to go anywhere near economic equality to make small moves in inequality that will give everyone the same opportunity and all they need to make a good start to their life.

But by paying to stop poverty, we are paying to reduce inequality – it is very hard to do one without the other.

“And German football is boring. Am I wrong?”

It is a lot more fun (and cheaper) to go and watch and more people do so, and the same four club don’t always finish in the top four. What’s not to like?

Once again you are conflating poverty and inequality. We’ve agreed that we should pay to stop the first but you are arguing that we should pay to mitigate the results of the second.

That is what is stultifying in its effect on our economy.

And German football is boring. Am I wrong?

The principle of redistributing wealth is well established – the debate is about how far to do so (if you are absolutely against this on principle, then that involves getting rid of everything from unemployed benefits to child benefit to income tax to tax credits to social housing to the NHS).

On the football analogy, again, some of the money made by the Premier League and top clubs is redistributed to smaller clubs and the grassroots, so we’re arguing about how much rather than points of principle. And the effects of inequality aren’t as benign as you suggest – already it’s the case that only 4 clubs can win the Premier League and relegation in the Championship and Leagues 1 and 2 is largely a matter of whether a club has to go into administration or not. Would it really be the case that fewer people would watch football if a wider range of clubs could win the Premier League rather than just the big four?

The German League has a lower standard of players, less TV money, less inequality between clubs…and the highest average attendances in Europe (as well as a top division where five different clubs lead the table at different times, and where the championship was not decided until the last day).

Or you could use the F1 model. Brawn GP making Ferrari and McLaren look stupid – all because of levelling the playing field, as it were.

Hi Don

I thought WE had a consensus for a moment but I’m afraid your last sentence spoiled it.

We agree that

1) People are inherently unequal. (eg I am a less talented footballer than Ronaldo but a more logical thinker than Sally!!!).

2) Absolute economic equality is impossible and undesirable.

The only way to achieve lower levels of inequality is to legislate to redistribute wealth in order to achieve this objective- to indulge in social or fiscal engineering. Not only is this wrong in principle, the impulse to do it is also flawed. Let’s stick for a moment to the football analogy.

English football clubs and the ability of the players who play for them are not equal. The top four clubs have more money and better players the the rest of the Premiership. The Premiership have stronger teams than the other leagues.

It would be possible for the FA to say, this is not fair and to ensure that gate receipts, television money etc be distributed more evenly amongst all clubs. They could also dictate, should they wish to do make things more equal, that Premiership clubs other than the top four got a goal of a start in every game.

The result of doing so would be that the top clubs, having less money and less success, would no longer be able to afford the top players and they would go abroad to play. The standard of football in England would consequently decline overall and fewer people would be interested in watching it. Despite their good intentions, the FA would have succeeded in destroying the success of English football as a whole. Nobody would have benefited.

State intervention to impose lower levels of inequality is similarly doomed to failure.

This seems a bizarre analogy but the Sports Minister recently proposed Government intervention to compel a share out of Champions League earnings among smaller clubs!!!