The UK has a productivity problem, it appears. Some of the least productive are senior executives in the City of London, who, I am told, are always on vacation. Blame private school holidays, Ascot, Wimbledon, Glyndebourne, Henley, which account for June and half of July. There are other excuses.
But the real reason that the City has long and longer absences “a la Francaise” is that these masters of the universe can earn in a week what the rest of us earn in a year. Incentives, incentives! Why bother going into the office when you have half a million sitting in your bank account that you haven’t even had time to invest? The ease of earning breeds both arrogance and laziness. The untouchable-ness of the top jokers in the banks must make them despise the rest of us. But mark my words, the reckoning cannot be indefinitely postponed. The tumbrils will roll. A former City trader, Tom Hayes, has recently been found guilty at a London court of rigging global Libor interest rates, and has been sentenced to 14 years in prison. What about the bosses? They authorise this sort of thing, yet they get away scot free. For how much longer?
Epicureans believe in moderation. Moderation is not a concept believed in or supported in the City of London, where everything is big, especially egos.
From what you’ve said, it seems that the best way to increase productivity is to reduce income inequality. At the bottom end, increasing wages increases quality by making workers feel that they are valued and increasing the incentive for them to work hard. But at the top end, increasing wages reduces productivity, as once you have a certain amount of money, offering additional rewards no longer results in a proportional increase in hard work or talent. I’m opposed to raising the minimum wage, but strengthening unions and collective bargaining rights, increasing the top rate of income tax, banning employment contracts that mandate more than 40 hours a week, and reducing the size of the financial sector- would all effectively reduce income inequality.