Jeremy Corbyn has today announced that he would like to cap the pay of the very rich. He did not specify exactly what the cap would be but he made it clear that this included top businessmen and soccer players.
This will no doubt win great plaudits from vast numbers of public sector workers who, these days, are the bedrock of what little support Labour has. A few - but too many - of these folks are in the 1% that Corbyn is believed to be targetting (those earning more than £164,000 a year). but most are not. They are however well paid and with far better job security and pensions and shorter hours than similarly educated and skilled folks in the private sector. And the non risk taking, state funded affluent middle classes buy into the politics of envy.
Among those who will be whacked will be the soccer players and more entrepreneurs than top managers. And such folk are far more likely to be working class in background than a smug GP on £107,000 a year or head of department at a liberal arts former Poly on £60,000 a year (for a terribly short working year). This is a proposed tax on the aspirational and hard working which will be supported by a lazy, overpaid privileged smug middle class public sector.
It is also economic madness. Som4e high earners (the soccer players in droves) will go overseas. Entrepreneurs will simply take a pay cut and leave the cash in their company's until the fiscal regime becomes less hostile as happened in the 1970s. The Taxpayers Alliance calculates that the top 1% of earners pay 27% of the income tax collected. Clobber such folk by "capping" pay and you will merely see less tax collected from fewer people. Which will leave Government finances in an even worse state.
The trouble with socialists is that eventually they run out of other people's money. So said the great Lady Thatcher. As you hear Mr Corbyn spouting such hateful nonsense you understand just how right she was.