Dear Sir/Madam,

 

The problem of excessive executive pay ("Executive pay leaps ahead 17%" and "Rich man's world", 04.10.2002) is part of a much wider and deeper problem, which has been with us since before we became human and which the commentary in today's Guardian does not even begin to address.

Money is power and many, perhaps most of us, are programmed and conditioned to want as much of it as possible. What I couldn't do with lots of money - the more the better - for myself, my family, my friends, and for all the "good" I would like to do in the world!

Can you blame top executives for feeling that they are worth as least as much as royalty and others with unearned income and inherited wealth, or celebrities in the film, music or sport industries? Can you blame London's tube drivers for wanting a £31,000, a mere £8,000 or so above the national average and only treble what the lowest paid have to get by on?

We are so accustomed to money being the measure of success - and who doesn't want to be as "successful" as possible? -  whether personal, corporate or national, irrespective of how it is made, that we have no appreciation of just how corrupt it all is. It is one of the major "insanities of normality".

We are told that the market decides what someone is worth and that if you want the best person for the job you must pay them the most money, but I venture to question whether this is really true, and if it is, whether it is bound to remain so.

The poor are always assumed to be the world's biggest problem. In fact, it is the RICH! Because our planet, with its finite resources and carrying capacity, cannot sustain their insatiable, grossly materialistic lifestyles. It is not just because they place a far greater per capita burden on our planet than the poor do. Much more importantly, it is because they act as role models, which others - billions of them! - seek to emulate.

It is the rich who spend and invest huge sums of money in a non-sustainable economy that is plundering and disrupting our planet. And their influence is magnified far beyond what they spend themselves by the media portraying them as models of "success" for others to admire, envy and - which is the real problem - emulate. When only a few rich people owned a car and jetted about the world our planet could shrug it off, but not any longer.

If the world's role models and trendsetters, the rich, famous and "successful", are not just seen but glorified for their non-sustainable lifestyles, what hope is there of persuading others to live sustainably?

None whatsoever. Which can mean only one thing: extinction!

Unless . . . .

. . . .We have got used to the idea of a Minimum Wage. What we now need to consider, if we want to preserve the planet for our children and coming generations, is the idea of a MAXIMUM WAGE, i.e. a limit to personal income and wealth.

I'm joking, of course, just as Copernicus was 450 years ago when he suggested that the Earth orbits the Sun and turns on its axis, despite the evidence of one's senses and authoritative opinion, which insisted that it stood still at the centre of the universe. It took almost a century before Copernicus's view became generally accepted educated opinion. Now, of course, it is obvious to everyone that Earth is a wandering star (planet) which moves and spins through space - but only thanks to authority and majority now having got it right.

Acceptance of a MAXIMUM WAGE or the ethos that underlies it (no one having the right to place more than a proportionate and sustainable burden on our planet's carrying capacity), is essential to achieving sustainability.

It is in our enlightened self-interest.

How can it be achieved? Not by trying to force it on others, but by those of us who understand and care living it ourselves and setting an example.

Will enough people follow the example? I hope so. If not we might at least hope to reduce the extent of the calamity towards which we are heading and improve our children's chances for survival, recovery and future prosperity.