Mostly scoundrels, is the answer to that one. And also Oxfam.
Caring about one’s own wealth is fine, provided one doesn’t care about it too much, at the expense of one’s soul. However, caring about someone else’s wealth betokens at least two deadly sins, envy and greed.
That’s why those who refer to socialism as the religion of envy have a point. The salient observation is that Western communicants of this creed typically don’t want to enrich the poor.
They want to impoverish the rich (however broadly this category is defined), provided they themselves can parade their flaming conscience all the way to the bank. There are all sorts of alliterative terms on both sides of the Atlantic to describe this type, such as ‘limousine liberals’ or ‘Bollinger Bolsheviks’.
It’s in this context that Oxfam’s cri de coeur can be properly understood. This global confederation of poverty charities is worried about a lamentable fact that in reality is neither lamentable nor a fact.
According to Oxfam (and Credit Suisse), the top one per cent have as much wealth as the remaining 99 per cent of the world combined. For Oxfam it goes without saying that this situation is both deplorable and remediable.
The implicit belief is that a man who has to make do with a million pounds is severely disadvantaged compared to someone who has a billion. Yet such a pauper would only feel that way if he were consumed with envy, thereby forfeiting any claim to sympathy.
What should matter to a decent person is having enough for himself and his family, rather than having as much as his neighbour. But then giant corporations, especially those in the charity gig, don’t think like decent people. Their aspirations are akin to those of our governing spivocrats; their goals are mostly self-serving and destructive.
The methodology by which Oxfam arrived at that calculation is questionable: wealth is interpreted not, say, as the means of acquiring the civilised amenities of life but strictly as the difference between personal assets and liabilities.
Hence a City stockbroker earning £300,000 a year, having a £2,000,000 portfolio but carrying a £3,000,000 mortgage on a Kensington semi is dirt-poor compared to a Chinese de facto slave only earning enough to buy a cup of rice a day but not owing anyone a single Yuan.
But leaving that aside, Oxfam ought to be reminded of absolute rather than relative wealth (or poverty) as being the sole valid criterion of economic wellbeing. And more equality usually doesn’t mean less poverty: it’s always easier to equalise at the lowest common denominator.
For example, economic inequality in Victorian England was smaller than it is in England today, and yet only an intrepid commentator would suggest that there was less poverty then.
Oxfam’s business is relieving poverty, not reducing wealth, yet both methods can narrow the gap that so worries this venerable organisation. Of the two expedients, the second is easier while the first is more moral, but our top charities aren’t unduly concerned about morality.
So fine, I’m prepared to accept for the sake of argument that economic inequality is so evil that any method of reducing it is worthy, including dispossessing the offensive one per cent.
Since, as we know, charity begins at home, I propose to get the ball rolling by reducing, or ideally cutting out, the salaries of those running and operating our top charities, including Oxfam.
Charities, after all, are supposed to channel aid to its ultimate targets, not into their own pockets. Alas, both here and in the US a typical major charity appropriates between 65 and 90 per cent of all donations for its own use.
Here, for example, are the top executives’ salaries at Britain’s major charities:
1. London Clinic £850,000 to £860,0002. Nuffield Health £770,000 to £780,000
3. St Andrew’s Healthcare £750,000 to £760,000
4. Wellcome Trust £590,000 to £600,000
5. Royal Opera House £566,000
6. Anchor Trust £420,000 to £430,000
7. City & Guilds £400,000 to £410,000
8. Legal Education Foundation £360,000 to £370,000
9. Children’s Investment Fund Foundation £350,000 to £360,000
10. Church Commissioners for England £330,000 to £340,000
Oxfam’s top executive pockets a mere £125,000 a year, which is modest by these standards but still quite far removed from the breadline. Am I alone in thinking this is outrageous?
In fact such practices are par for the course. They vindicate the main economic principle of modernity: giant organisations, commercial, governmental or charitable, operate chiefly for the benefit of their managerial elites, whatever their ostensible remit or declared goals.
Reversing this trend should be the first step the Oxfam brass could take to their coveted aim, reducing economic inequality.
I expect an announcement shortly that henceforth they’ll forgo their salaries and work solely to assuage their conscience and indulge their taste for justice. You know, the way charities used to work before socialist corruption set in.