It is generally commendable that people who take part in public discussion be open about where they are coming from. This is so that citizens can evaluate whether or not they have a particular interest in the outcome. The general requirement is that they be upfront and explicit about possible determinants of their views. We consider it normal, for example, to ask a member of a TV studio audience who offers an opinion, if they are a member of a political party. There is however one, glaring, secretive exception.
When pay or pay policy is discussed, most of those talking in the media enjoy salaries that are multiples of the average, never mind the minimum, wage. Unlike party membership, salary is kept secret or not considered a possible determinant of argument, a vested interest.** There has always been an excessively mannered reluctance to divulge or discuss a person’s income. Bluntly, there is a pretentious effort to ensure that personal income be considered strictly private. Now, the history of political communication, democratization and progress itself can be traced through issues being dragged out of the private realm into the light of politics. It is time that public debate took another intrusive step.***
Consider how newspapers frequently place a person’s age in brackets or how TV identifies, describes and classifies a contributor with an informative caption under their picture. Now, consider a debate about pay – say, a proposal to increase the legal minimum wage – in which contributors’ incomes appeared in brackets and in captions. If Josephine Bloggs, Economist with A, Professor of B, Economics Editor at C, Director of D or CEO of E, appeared to argue pay policy with her salary clearly shown, a more open, honest debate could take place.
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* I first made this suggestion in a blog in 2009. That was written at the height of a recession when pay cuts were a matter of constant discussion. I was prompted to modify and republish it by the sight of a well-off spokesperson for an employers’ advocacy group opposing a tiny increase in the legal minimum wage.
** Making interest clear is not normally an obligation placed on media workers.
*** My late friend, Peter Mooney, often said with a nod to Marx,‘The parameters of any debate in society are the parameters of the ruling class’.
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