I don’t like any kind of extreme and as I said, I believe in freedom and the state not owning everything. But where there are no laws or loose laws, there should be basic principles. I think there’s a fair distance between being disgusted by the excesses of a liberal economy and being a communist. Sure, a doctor who studied hard (and has a tough job involving life and death) should earn a decent living, sure, an employer has more responsibilities than an employee and should therefore earn more, but merit is often used as the justification for all kinds of crazy incomes with nothing to do with merit.

Reminds me of this story from last week : a guy at my work joked in the elevator that he earns 4000 euros in two weeks (not that there’s anything wrong with that). He then realised that everyone in the same elevator earned about a thousand a month and must have gotten uncomfortable, so as to justify it he said “well, we (= the receptionists) work very hard”. Which actually was a worse thing to say, go tell someone who cleans other people’s poo for a living that they don’t work hard. My repartee was an easy one, President Sarkozy had infamously said on the same week that he wanted to do a parallel celebration on workers day for “the real workers”, so I could not not kid him saying : “so I guess that means on may 1, you’re going to that other party ?”. ^{Which reminds me I must get dressed and go vote today ;)}