A century-old letter
In June 1919 the Taranaki Herald published a 'Letter to the Editor', sent in by Walter Nash, who was at that time working in New Plymouth and helping with the development of the infant local branch of the Labour Party.
It was quite a long, detailed letter responding to an Editorial about ecnomic affairs that the paper had printed a few days earlier.
The main point of Nash's commentary was that workers made up two-thirds of the workforce, but only enjoyed 40% of the income, whereas capitalists, who were a very small proportion, enjoyed a much larger share.
Nash wanted to know why workers should be expected to work harder without the extra financial incentive that the owners of wealth received to allow their capital to be used.
It was an argument for more equality of incomes, for a living wage, and by implication a fairer tax regime.
Sound familiar?
This is basically the same point that politicians like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders have been making, and their academic supporters like Robert Reich and Bryan Gould have been arguing for, during the debate that has raged around this issue over the last few months.
Since Nash's day the width of the inequality gap has been reduced until its low point in the seventies and eighties, but since then it has increased again to its present size, which is very much what it was a century ago.
Perhaps we need a mechanism which will not only right the imbalance, but will also self-correct regularly so that things will not get out of kilter again.
What do you think?
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