Is it time for a 'maximum wage'?

A think tank has published research that suggests executive pay is now 162 times that of the average worker. Just so that sinks in, one more time 162 (ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO) times the average workers pay!!

I'm all for paying for 'top talent' and giving equitable reward to those at the top with pressure and responsibility but that is ridiculous and potentially capable of creating gaping social inequalities.

http://highpaycentre.org/blog/new-film-income-inequality-in-the-uk

So what is the solution? Capping top level pay. No I don't mean inverting the minimum wage and saying something ridiculous like thou shalt not earn more than £200 an hour. I mean setting a limit so that CEOs etc could not earn an amount beyond a set multiple of the average pay of their staff. John Lewis already does this, the ration is 75:1 (hardly harsh) and I don't see their business suffering as a result.

Some might say it's an affront to civil liberty and the ability of the market to regulate itself. To hell with that. The neo-liberal dream of the self-correcting market is quite clearly a fantasy undermined daily by the ever widening inequalities in society and the inability of regulators to control soaring profits without justification (cough cough utilities companies).

The average wage in the UK is currently £26,500 - imagine if you index linked 75:1 to that - your chief executive would still get £1,987,500 not exactly a paltry sum!