Simplicity in the face of wealth

The last few months has seen the unfolding of the biggest financial crisis for decades. Greece and Italy are deeply enmeshed in such huge debt that “normal” rules within the European Union and management of the Euro have all but broken down. The obvious danger is that the management of these debts might become so difficult that markets fail to have confidence in the authorities to stabilise the currency leading to economic chaos.

Yet senior management in this country had a salary rise of no less than 48% last year. Well-known figures in the media, even the BBC, are earning literally millions of pounds a year. Bankers’ bonuses are the stuff of legend even following the banking crisis, and for many money is simply no object.

We require commerce and depend on it. Ever since we first started farming and dividing labour into trades we learned to rely on the skills of others. And today anyone on a pension or planning a pension is just as reliant upon the skills of businesses and the financial sector as anyone else. Although we may criticise the excesses in the financial sector we all benefit from them to an extent. It’s like getting caught up in a traffic jam and blaming the traffic: we forget that we are traffic ourselves. We want to have our cake and eat it – the benefits of commercial life without its extremes. In a de-regulated financial sector this is harder to achieve than it sounds, particularly in an economy like ours that derives such benefit from the City.

A tiny fragment of this chaos washed up at St Paul’s Cathedral. Facing one of the most recognisable buildings in London is a collection of the most temporary – nylon tents. The occupants are there to make the point about the excesses and injustices of capitalism and wealth in the face of the poor. The incident has cost the Cathedral dearly.

Click to read more from Noel Hector, Rural Dean of Portishead