One problem is percentages, another is totals, but the major fault is the human inability to judge what is fair.
I sat in a large gathering of co-workers a few years ago where the boss gave everyone a 1% pay rise, the people in the room thought that was fair. In truth the boss gave the cleaners less than £100+ a year, the support staff around £150 to £250, teachers around £300+, Executives and department heads £400 – £700, and herself over £1100 in the pocket per year…and inflation was at 1.5% so the lowest earners effectively got poorer, in fact anyone earning under £36kpa ft was out money as that was the average wage for that year, anyone earning above that threshold also lost out up until the point where their 1% exceeded in monetary terms the 1.5% of £36k, and anyone earning more than that further value point was up money on the year before just like they always are because they do not consume at a higher rate the goods that make up the basket in the RPI figures. So broad percentage rises in remuneration do nothing to shrink inequality, in fact they actually keep increasing it. VAT rises do this too, rich people don’t pay VAT a lot of the time, they buy many things through their registered businesses and pass the VAT on to the greater fool, the last buyer. VAT is a tax on consumers of goods in the RPI basket, that’s you again unfortunately…
High earners pay more tax than low earners, while this statement may be true it is also true to say that high earners keep a higher percentage of what they earn than lower waged workers do, and arguably, though highly educated (not to be confused with highly skilled though as that is more likely middle income earners) they work no harder for it (who has the tougher job realistically, the sewer maintenance person or the executive in the suit?), they just have the massive advantage of being able to decide how they contribute because they’re not PAYE, their tax is worked out by themselves and their accountants, not forced upon them by a company using tax office rules. They have options, can defer their wage, pay more pension contributions, claim expenses, take other less-taxed forms of payment like club memberships or goods, even defraud and lie about what they actually earn by setting up companies in other countries and having their earnings paid into that as if they were employees, they can run their own businesses within a business like in the case of a doctor, lawyer, surgeon, or accountant (practice), and if they’re truly corrupt cnuts they can even get elected to parliament or edit a newspaper. In this we’re fooled by the large numbers, this is simplification but go with it… say I get £20k a year and pay £20% tax, that’s £4kpa, so if an executive makes 100kpa they should really pay £20kpa tax, and that seems like more because it is more actual dosh, but they don’t because they can get out of a lot of it. The problem is they then can get get more per £1 earned in their pocket than I do, and we accept that because they actually do pay a lot of tax, certainly not as much as they should if all things were equal, and definitely not as much as you do in total and because there’s a lot less of them cumulatively it makes a big difference…
And to our judgement…most people think this system is fair, that inequality is a result of lack of effort rather than an unfair turn of circumstance or by chance, that people who have wealth and power have somehow earned it even though statistics show that more than 95% of European wealth is inherited and power (which drives wealth) is almost always enabled from above and not through attainment, that a paid-for education is superior to visiting the library with a keen interest. I met Michael Owen (the footballer) briefly once, he acted the prick because of who he was, gave me some cheek for missing a shot on a snooker table. Now let’s bear in mind that he’s a hero to many because he scored that one goal, and I was a soldier at the same time he played for Manchester United and England, but in a comparison I’m nobody because he was born with well coordinated feet, what a fuckin guy.
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