Sir Muir Russell, the principal of Glasgow University, has received a 15% salary increase, taking it to £211,000. Although parts of the university have suffered cutbacks, a spokesperson stated that the huge hike was justifiable because he is a "successful" principal.
Sir Muir is already rich. He retired from the civil service, where he earned a large salary and pension. Does he need yet more money to continue in his post? Many people achieve success in jobs that are valuable and stressful. They do so for a modest income because money is not their main motive.
The principal is not alone. The average FTSE 100 company chief executive rakes in £32,263 a week. Yet the rich are never satisfied. They possess two homes, posh cars, enjoy expensive clothes and hobbies, and want more. The rich are addicted to grasping more money regardless of the adverse effects on others.
I object to this greed on two ideological grounds. First, socialism. RH Tawney - a socialist who taught at Glasgow University - started from the basis that all people are of equal value. Resources should be shared between the many, not hoarded by the few. More than 30% of children lack adequate food and leisure activities. Meanwhile, the likes of Sir Muir can spend freely on "music, food and wine", to name his listed recreations, and have thousands to spare. This is unjust. Second, as a Christian. Jesus warned his followers: "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed", and "You cannot serve God and mammon".
When I left a university chair to start a project on a council estate, academic colleagues berated me for forfeiting money and pension. One said: "You are a fool." In contrast, Jesus told a parable about a rich man who kept on accumulating more and then died. God addressed him: "You fool."
The case against the greedy rich also turns on more immediate issues. They encourage rampant materialism. As Oliver James argues in his book, Afluenza, countries dominated by this vice tend to have higher levels of unhappiness than others.
Also, the rich contribute to poverty. Their insistence on having too much means that others have too little.
They also promote inequality. Professor Richard Wilkinson shows that those at the bottom of very unequal societies are more likely to have infants who die young, to suffer serious illnesses and to die years before those at the top. Francis Bacon wisely wrote: "Money is like muck, not good except it be spread."
Not least, they divide the nation. Their luxurious homes, posh neighbourhoods, friendship patterns, life styles and contacts with the powerful separate them from the mass of people. They are part of a continuing system of social class which determines the distribution of income and wealth - to the loss of those at the bottom.
I do not believe that poverty and inequality can be understood in insolation from the rich. Today a significant conference called Glasgow's People: Transcending Poverties is being addressed by prominent and powerful figures.
They will say much about the weaknesses of the poor. What will they say about the part played by the affluent in creating and sanctioning poverty?
- Bob Holman is a retired professor of social policy and a neighbourhood worker in Easterhouse.
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