The alternative is to be nice to each other, not be slaves to artificial constructs like markets and not try to fleece all and sundry.

How do you determine what constitutes super-normal profits and how many businesses fall into that category?

Businesses will pay what they have to pay to attract the calibre of labour they require. To pay more would be foolish and render them uncompetitive unless the whole market followed suit. You wouldn't pay over the asking price for anything would you? There are limited things government can do without negatively impacting the competiveness of individual businesses especially if we want to encourage exports.

Businesses are already paying a 14% tax on employing people - why not simply remove that at lower levels and increase the minimum wage by 14%?

I agree re the feel good factor in the economy but a timely cut in income tax cut/increase in personal allowance will sort that.

Add in "realise money isn't everything" and we're on our way.

What about the small businessman? The person who has an idea and who decides to back themselves, putting a lot of time and effort into growing the brand. Are they also amoral, when in the fullness of time they can enjoy the salary/profits that their endeavours brought them? The nice house in a decent area, enough in the bank to pursue an expensive hobby, or fund a private education for their children etc etc. In short, enjoy the fruits of their labours.

Do we also disregard the jobs they may have created directly for their staff, or indirectly through the suppliers they use?

Are you actually proposing that at some point in the success of this enterprise, you would expect Big Brother in the shape of HMG, to impose whatever is the fashionable thinking, and set mandatory limits on the amount of profit that this business is making?

Seriously?

Profit is not a bad word.

It’s a zero sum game. There is a finite amount in the world. Profit somewhere = loss elsewhere.

If we remember that, maybe we could avoid the greed and avarice which has been like a runaway train of destruction since Thatcher/Reagan.

But as things are, we have a huge trade deficit (over £100bn a year, or about £1,500 per head of population), and a large slice of what we "export" is in services rather than manufacturing. And of what little manufacturing we have left, some 80% of manufacturing SME's export nothing.

Therefore increasing the minimum wage to the living wage (for example) would have no significant effect on exports whatsoever. it's a fallacy.

I think history proves otherwise. Even if you think of money just in terms of a number instead of value.

Fine.


No.


No.

I am saying that it is not good enough to let businesses set their own moral framework.
I am saying that if capitalism is to truly benefit society, then employment legislation and statutory business regulations etc are vital to curb unscrupulous business practices

Instead of going off one with an inflated straw man argument, why not address what I clearly meant?

In what way has history proven otherwise?

Are the total profit's in the world exactly the same as they were five thousand years ago? Or any time frame?

It’s a relative statistic isn’t it. As the amount of money in the world goes up, the value of it goes down.

So is the world's total wealth more or less than it was a thousand years ago?