It's not envy, stupid!

Just as people have favourite words, they have “un-favourite" words, too.

Sometimes, these are new words, such as the verb "blamestorm", which means sitting around thinking about who can be blamed when something has gone wrong. Sometimes, these are old words used in new ways, such as the expression "grow a company" (as opposed to growing strawberries or a beard).

We all have our language allergies. Some people hate sentences that start with "hopefully". Others want to quickly die at the sight of split infinitives, or find sentences that end in prepositions difficult to put up with.

So, let me reveal my personal language allergy. I go into a burning rage every time I hear or read the phrase, "the politics of envy", as here, for example. This phrase is trotted out by free-market extremists if anyone dares to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the salaries of some top managers are a teeny-weeny bit too high.

That's the free market, the extremists say. There's nothing you can do about it, they insist. It's "supply and demand", they parrot — but with far less intelligence that my economist parrot Maynard when he uses this phrase.

Well, slowly, some of the more moderate extremists — if you see what I mean — are realizing that it's not just supply and demand at play. Top salaries are often the result of deals done with mates on the boards of companies without anyone ever really trying hard to find someone just as competent who would be willing do the job for less.

Top salaries are not always efficient, as the free-market extremists would claim. In fact, it is particularly inefficient to offer bonus payments that are unrelated to medium-term success. And another thing: it's not equitable to pay people more than they are worth.

So, to call for sensible controls on the pay of top managers has nothing to do with the "politics of envy". Envy, according to The Oxford Dictionary of English, is "a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities or luck".

That's not the motivation for calling for an end to bloated salaries and ludicrous bonus payments. It's not envy — discontented or resentful longing — it's a desire for efficiency and equity. But the extreme free-market extremists will never understand that.