NOTHING demonstrates more graphically the increasing polarisation between the working class and the capitalist class than the gigantic and ever-increasing differentials between the obscene levels of pay awarded to the bosses compared to the poverty levels being imposed on workers.
This was highlighted in yesterday’s report by the independent think-tank the High Pay Centre entitled ‘Fat Cat Wednesday 2017’. It reports that in the first two and a half working days of 2017 the top bosses who make up the FTSE 100 will already have ‘earned’ more than the average worker will make for the entire year.
This equates to an hourly rate of over £1,000 even if these Chief Executives work 12 hours a day and take no or very few holidays. This compares with the government’s ‘national living wage’ for over-25s that is set at £7.20 an hour.
Workers in Britain have suffered the biggest pay cuts of any leading capitalist economy since the crash of 2007, its nearest rival being the working class in Greece which has been similarly hammered into the ground by the most savage austerity cuts imposed to bail out the bosses and bankers.
These same bosses, who are presiding over a collapsing manufacturing industry and banking system, have clearly not been prepared to suffer the same austerity they are determined to inflict on workers and their families.
Workers’ pay has been reduced to levels not seen since the 1930s, dubbed the ‘Hungry Thirties’. This was brought home by figures produced last year by the Office for National Statistics that showed that in the past four years one third of the population was pushed below the official poverty line at least once.
Officially, 3.9 million people were in a state of ‘persistent poverty’ while millions more are in a constant state of moving in and out of extreme poverty, going from one pay day to the next and living in dread of an unexpected bill or rent increase.
Millions of workers and youth who, with the collapse of well-paid secure jobs as a result of capitalism’s crash, have been forced onto zero-hours contracts or into becoming ‘self-employed’ and working for much less than the official living wage.
While the working class is forced to exist on the charity of food banks and constantly living with the dread of having to choose between paying the rent or feeding the children, these ‘fat cats’ are living the life of luxury while always preaching the necessity of austerity cuts to keep their capitalist system going.
Although this report highlights the obscenity of such extreme levels of inequality it can offer absolutely no solutions apart from begging capitalism to reform itself. The director of the Centre, Stefan Stern, said: ‘We hope the government will recognise that further reform to pay practices is needed if this gap is to be closed.’
This was taken up by the TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, who commented: ‘Working people deserve a fair share of the wealth they help create. But while the pay of top executives has been rocketing up, the average weekly wage is still worth less than it was nine years ago.
‘The Prime Minister must stick to her promise to tackle excessive pay at the top. And she should keep her commitment to put workers on company boards. This would help keep executive salary decisions grounded in common sense and fairness.’
Workers don’t ‘help create wealth’ under capitalism. It is a system which is based on the private ownership of the means of production. All wealth is produced by the labour of workers and then expropriated in the form of profit by the capitalist class.
In its crisis, capitalism is forced to drive down wages and cut all social spending in order to keep these profits coming. With millions of workers in Britain rising up unable to live anymore under this system the issue is not to put trade union bureaucrats on the board, but to overthrow the entire system and advance to a socialist society that will abolish private ownership of industry and the banks and consign the fat cats to history. The crisis of capitalism has placed socialist revolution firmly on the agenda in 2017.
