However, pointing out the left wing bias in everyday political discourse will invariably be meet with howls of derision. Reds under the bed? Calling the Labour Party full of Marxist ideology? Ooh, how extreme and how scary this unhinged person is for using the M word.
Which is why I am taking the time to remark on an otherwise unremarkable editorial in the Sunday Star Times this week. In a reaction to high salaried managers being at the helm when a stuff-up is discovered in government, the editorial calls on a salary cap.
It advocated for a cap of $400,000 because that is what the Prime Minister earns, and he is a very busy and important person went the logic. Why set the benchmark so high though, really? Surely, he is the most busiest and most important person in a command and control economy this Editorialist dreams about? So a CEO of a large government department perhaps needs their salary clipped at say $200,000 being only half as important, on account of there being so many other ministries?
The idea of maximum salaries is extremely left wing. What's also interesting is the excuse it takes to have this as the solution. Deconstructing the proposition, the editorial is suggesting perhaps a $400,000 per year salary is a permissible fee to pay for incompetence. How about instigating performance reviews? How about demanding salary tied to outcomes? Perhaps responsibility is too much a far right wing concept for this newspaper?
The Waikato Times also brings forth a policy suggestion by a "History Student" to cap salaries. Why a history student, and why that particular student? Are they what is used when credibility needs to be extra high? Perhaps the newspaper editor and the history student were both at the Marxist Not So Anonymous meeting held weekly on campus next to the Che Guevara Beret shop? Who knows?
The suggested maximum salary from the Waikato Times was $200,000. Because presumably, that's enough money for any-one, even with an ideal 60% tax rate. And presumably, this isn't just the State we are talking about, but the whole business sector.
Indeed, that is how the SST editorial finished off their proposal. Today - the government, and tomorrow, the private sector.
Infected with Marxism.
Another Example: Infected with Marxism
Zen, you and I both know capping salaries would be nothing more than an interim step. Their long-held desire to equalize outcomes means eventually they would do just that. Everybody would "earn" exactly the same amount, and the generous, benevolent State will provide for their needs. Whether they be a laborer on a state-run farm, or one of the authors of the latest 5-year Plan, all will earn the same amount. And live in a government-built, government-provided apartment.
ReplyDeleteAnd we will all be happy little proles, living our lives in service to the State.
I am reminded of the fatal flaw of Marxism courtesy of the previous comment. Marxism asserts that all labor is equal, but this is clearly not true. If one were to take three bakers and give them each a bushel of apples you could see this clearly. The first baker is an extraordinary baker and makes incredible apple tarts that he can charge 7.50 for and receive. The second baker is a good baker, but he can only get 4.25 for his tarts. The last baker is incompetent and makes an inedible mess with his bushel of apples resulting in a loss valued at the cost of the apples.
ReplyDeleteThree different bakers and three different outcomes. That is why Marx's theory fails because such a system will always trend toward the lowest common denominator. Because why should the top baker give it his all when the incompetent baker makes as much as he does? Given no example to strive for and faced with the same proposition, the good baker follows suit. There is no incentive to perform, to create, or to excel. This of course leads to a command economy where the government dictates what is produced and how much.
Chairman Mao found out the hard way that a command economy doesn't work all that well when he had his people make steel instead of planting crops. The starvation that followed was easily foreseen or it would have been if the leftists would have actually given it some thought and opened their eyes.
If one accepts that doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different outcomes as being the definition of insanity, then the modern Marxists are clearly insane. Their ideology has been a consistent failure time and time again. What the Marxist ideology is good at is the oppression of its citizens, crimes against humanity, and propaganda. None of which is beneficial in a society where individual freedom and responsibility is valued.
But William, why should the "good" baker earn more than the "incompetent" baker simply because of some perceived difference in their abilities - given them by nature, and which neither has any control over. Especially since "good" and "incompetent" are subjective value-measures!
ReplyDeleteThe "incompetent" baker puts in just as much effort as the "good" baker, and he should therefore receive the same reward from a generous and benevolent state, surely?
But, back in the real world...
"This of course leads to a command economy where the government dictates what is produced and how much."
Given the purpose of government these days is to ensure ever-increasing government power, the above is precisely the outcome for which they strive!