Charles in Elk: "@gbargoud @clarity The minimum salary in th..."

Your regular reminder that "the rich" aren't people who earn large paychecks. They are people with capital that generates returns: investments, property, company shares. "High income earners" are not an intrinsic enemy of "the working class" – many of them are a member of it!

a surgeon earning $400k with few investments living paycheck-to-paycheck (very possible if they have a sick parent with high healthcare costs or high childcare prices) has more in common with a food service worker than with Jeff Bezos, but the system is designed to make both workers forget that.

struggling with this one, maybe its a UK-US difference?

The median salary in the UK is about £39k. That's $51k in US money.

British members of parliament get £91k. That's $120k in US money.

$400k is a fortune.

and a food service worker with "a very sick parent with high healthcare costs or high childcare prices" will be in much more st than the surgeon.

what am I missing?

$400k is a lot but someone who gets it through their work is a worker.

Someone who gets that much money through investments and assets is not.

The note about a sick family member feels like a bit of a red herring there although that could damage even that big of a salary.

The minimum salary in the UK is £22k for a full-time job. That's £29k.

So a surgeon work's 13x as hard as a service worker on minimum wage?

I see the point being made that workers are workers, but I think this is flawed. There's being paid for work and then there's being paid (wink wink) for work.

The idea of ensuring the difference between the highest paid and lowest paid in any organisation must not be more than 5x is an excellent idea. I think the UK Greens might do it

March 14, 2026 at 1:32:30 AM

"So a surgeon work's 13x as hard as a service worker on minimum wage?" this is a misnomer. of course not. the salary gap is a deep injustice that needs fixing. but they both -work-. unlike someone who collects a nice sum just from the money sitting in their stocks.

A surgeon (one who is not a manager, though some are) gets paid for working. So do nurses, medical assistants, janitors, receptionists etc. They make money from working.

Capitalists own the Surgeon's and all those other workers' labor and make money off of their work. They control the conditions that decide how much people like the surgeon are paid and us that to take as much money from the work of others for themselves. They make money off of others because they own things.

Managers get paid to get workers to work harder to make as much money for capitalists as possible. They get paid for making others work hard, not exactly for their own work (though managing is work while owning things is not).

One thing capitalists and managers do is create inequality to get people to compete with each other, work hard to move up, etc. That's why a surgeon gets paid a lot, and a medical assistant gets paid very little. The surgeon isn't making money off the assistant.