Yahoo Finance Saints and sinners in the pay cap debate | Letters
Your editorial (The Guardian view on Corbyn and pay: close that gap, 11 January) was entirely right to say that “pay for those running FTSE companies is too high” and you were right to welcome the policy floated by Jeremy Corbyn to set a ratio of top to lowest pay. But there’s nothing novel about this proposal.
This has been Green party policy for many years – although we’re calling for a ratio of 10:1, not 20:1. There has also been a growing civil society movement calling for companies to publish their pay ratios, as provided for in the US Dodd-Frank legislation.
Indeed, historically and globally it is the very large ratios found in the US and the UK now that are anomalous, not attempts to restrict them. For instance, countries such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Japan have ratios an order of magnitude lower than the UK’s, and in the 1960s a ratio of around 20:1 was the developed-country norm.
Natalie Bennett
Former leader, Green party
• As is well known, success in business is more often than not the result either of luck, or of one or other kind of antisocial behaviour. This is rarely acknowledged by our captains of industry. The greater their mediocrity, the greater their tendency to assume that the success they enjoy must be due to their own outstanding talent, thus broadcasting to the world their lack of judgment. Far from being permitted to run a company, someone who really thinks they’ve “earned” £10m a year should clearly be referred for urgent psychiatric treatment.
Emeritus professor Roger Carpenter
Cambridge
• Of course, footballers’ pay is ridiculous even allowing for their possibly short careers but as a Saints season ticket holder I’ve opted to contribute towards their inflated incomes. The same choice to support or not applies to all branches of the sport and entertainment industry. When it comes to privatised utilities, transport etc, however, it is not possible to opt out. Jeremy Corbyn is absolutely right to focus on the possibility of a pay cap. At least when I watch my team I can see the brilliance on display, although sadly lacking lately.
Karen Barratt
Winchester, Hampshire
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