Charivari

Liberty, equality, snobbery

Envy, so I keep hearing these days, is the canker eating into the soul of modern Britain. The most recent example cited is the howl of protest which Went up when Sir William Armstrong was appointed head of the Midland Bank at a salary of £34,000 a year. Writing in the Daily Mail, Mr Russell Lewis pointed out that, with taxation, Sir William would receive only a third of this sum. In Present circumstances, he added, "practically nobody, be he highly talented or industrious, can grow ricn or even comfortable on a salary. Not even on £34,000 a year." Mr Lewis, like a variety of commentators before him, warned that the narrowing of the income gap between managers and workers and the decline in British managerial salaries compared with those overseas were likely to deprive the country of its entire executive class. Harried by envy, they Would all emigrate. Sir Geoffrey Howe also stood up, in the columns of the Daily Telegraph, to be counted as a member of the resistance to the egalitarian onslaught. Without differential rewards, he declared, society would lose its dynamic. And, good Tory that he is, he warmly commended the example of the Soviet Union, where this lesson had been understood.

Where Lewis and Howe speak unto the nation, Shall Babble shrink from getting his oar in? Modesty bids me to be silent, but envy, which I have always taken as my guide, says to hell with modesty.

Envy, say I, is the engine of progress. What sPurs a man on to give of his best, to take resPonsibility, to climb the greasy pole and stab his rivals in the back? Material incentives? Certainly, Sir Geoff. The desire to be rich and comfortable? Absolutely, Mr Lewis. But what constitutes an incentive? How rich is rich? they two distinguished fellow-thinkers imply that tile)/ believe people to be motivated merely by ,..greed, definable as the drive to have more than. But surely that is very rare. Is it not a matter of

common observation that people, particularly ambitious people, fix their material goals in terms of envy, the drive to have as much as?

I do not know how Sir William Armstrong conducted his pay negotiations, but conceivably they could have gone something like this: Midland Bank: What about £20,000 then? Not bad for a superannuated civil servant, wouldn't you say?

Sir Bill: Yes, indeed. I trust it's, ahem, more than other people in the firm are getting.

Midland: Of course, sir. Several times more than most of them.

Sir Bill: I'm glad to hear it. Well, a man of my age should be able to manage on £20,000, I suppose. By the way, do you happen to know what the chairmen of other large concerns are getting? Midland: You do have a point there, sir. Some of them are getting quite a bit above £20,000.

Sir Bill: Quite so. I do find that rather a mortifying thought. Midland: Yes, well let's say £34,000 instead; shall we?

You see? Envy, pure envy. Just like all those executives who are unhappily adding up how much more their opposite numbers in France and Germany are making. I am not, you understand, knocking them. I am simply attempting to explain that their motivation — not wanting to fall behind the other fellow — is not essentially different trom that of coal miners, who go on strike or politicians who vote for hefty increases in direct. taxation.

The trouble with envy is that it is impossible to stop it spreading. Like Sir Geoff, I deplore the inability of miners to understand that, for society to function efficiently, the chairmen of banks must be paid twelve or thirteen times as much as them. But I'm afraid that's the way things are.

And, things being that way, we're bound to go on getting industrial unrest just at a period in our history when we can least afford it. Furthermore, it's no use telling the troublemakers that, while it's right and proper to profit from controlling the market in petrol, it's wrong to do so by controlling the supply of labour. How much happier we would be if the lower orders still knew their place, i.e. suppressed their natural envy. Alas, those days are gone tor ever.

But fear not. Unlike those other thinkers, Babble has a remedy. Give up, I say, trying to hold thF pass against the forces of financial envy. Pay everyone the same and find a new incentive to fuel the fires of ambition. The desire to serve one's fellow men? Good God, no. A visionary I may be but not a childish utopian. Fortunately in this country, though our financial resources may be limited, we have endless supplies of something else for which people will work and strive even harder than for money.

And what, you may ask, is that? Why, titles, gentles, titles. Under the new system I envisage, any business executive of reasonable competence and diligence will expect to become a knight by the age of thirty and a baron by the time he takes over his company's managing directorship. For the more distinguished managers in the larger firms, earldoms, viscountcies and even dukedoms will be generously dished out. Professional men and women — doctors, lawyers, pop singers — will be similarly eligible for honours. Long-serving shop stewards will be made counts and popular television personalities marquesses.

With the number of noble titles vastly increased, the Government, be it headed by Prince Harold or Prince Ted, will obviously have to abolish the House of Lords or else restrict it to members of their own princely order. The brain drain that Russell Lewis fears will be immediately halted, for whatever else a bright young British engineer may look forward to in Dusseldorf he can hardly hope to be made a Margrave.

For a time at least everything should go swimmingly. With no pay differentials to speak of, there will be far less agitation for pay increases. Spurred on by the prospect of an MBE for doing overtime, the manual worker will cooperate as enthusiastically with the system as the manager.

And what about when the car industry goes on strike for knighthoods. for everyone on the factory floor, thus upsetting the delicate balance of incentives? That may come, as may the refusal of Sir William Armstrong's successor to do his job for less than an Archduchy. But I'd rather not think about it.

Chad Babble