Fat cat executives may get paid millions, but so do footballers and we don't carp about their wages

Observer

The message was disconcerting enough - though I suppose that, 'How big is your penis?? Not bad!!' wouldn't have been much better. But it also raised a series of questions, the most obvious of which was, what is 'big enough'? In other words, how much penis does one need? For stand-up micturition you might want sufficient to take you clear of your clothing. For procreation I gather that it really doesn't matter much. But if you count display as a function, then - in a society that values monstrous genitals - the sky might be the limit.

The difference between penis size and vast wealth is that there is nothing that you can do about the former (and if you think there is, I don't believe you and I really don't want to hear about it), whereas - theoretically - you might be able to acquire the latter. But the same problem arises. Why does (since he has been cast as the suitable villain of the piece) Jean-Pierre Garnier of GlaxoSmithKline need such a huge amount of money? Is there an email in his head that pops up every morning asking, 'How big is your remuneration?' What does £3.06 million per annum get him that £1m wouldn't? You can only sleep in one bed at a time, drive one car at a time, take one holiday at a time, so what is the rest of it about?

But there is also a secondary question here, which is why do we care so much? What is it to me if Garnier does earn such an absurd amount? Were he to get half as much money, it would have no effect on my life whatsoever, and probably not a lot on the dividends of his shareholders or the jobs of his employees. And yet, along with many in this country, when Garnier said that he was 'no Mother Theresa' I wanted nothing more than to have him teleported, beautiful suits and all, to a faeces-strewn alley in ol' Calcutta. Face first.

More of that later; let's for the moment stick with the financially well-endowed themselves. It isn't fair to suggest that they all get their money through being greedy, as if they pushed, scratched, bit and struggled for their millions. Many are head-hunted, and the dosh is offered rather than demanded. Companies seem to believe that the right person in the top job can make all the difference, and - of course - those who make these decisions also exist within the mega-pay culture.

Even so there is a strange need for these 'packages' to be ever vaster; a need that is far more than merely material. Part of this may well be that money represents a clearly understood and easily measured way of valuing a person. Part may be down to insecurity about the future, based on an almost pathological fear of ever being poor. Wealth, theoretically, confers choices on its owners that are not available to the less wealthy.

Finally, of course, if poverty is to be understood in relative terms, then so is wealth. The rich are often not rich to themselves. They know (as we do not) whether a canal-side house in Dorsoduro trumps a palazzo on the Giudecca; whether a personal jet is better than a helicopter; and which Cessna is cool and which one sucks. The one who gets the bad jet and the less fashionable Venice address is as poor as the kid whose parents cannot afford to buy her the latest GameCube.

And what is our response all about? Social justice? The unfairness of it all? Are we really mad with rich execs only because their companies have performed badly? I doubt it. And why are we happy (ecstatic even) to pay far more to David Beckham than to the biggest wealth-producing executive in Britain? This weekend the England midfielder Lee Bowyer, of whom you may never have heard and who has had an indifferent season, was signing for Newcastle United in a deal worth £1.5m a year. There has not been a single comment about the size of this agreement.

This is a product - in part - of our anti-trade snobbery. Over in the US, where there is more reverence for business, the talk last week was about the 18-year-old basketball prodigy, LeBron James, who has just signed a £61m sponsorship deal with Nike. James has already attracted the attention of campaigner Ralph Nader, who suggested in a letter to the 6ft 8in teenager that he might like to think about his social responsibilities to the less fortunate. James, who was brought up in a unpleasant part of Akron, Ohio, by his lone teenage mother (his father was in prison), and who - at eight - missed 100 out of 162 days of school, seemed to have other things in mind, saying: 'When I was younger I didn't have much. And now that I've got a little something I'm gonna take it.'

Again, why should anyone care? Most of us subscribe pretty easily to the idea that more isn't better, and that rich doesn't equal happy. Sufficiency is what is important. My generation has always paid lip-service to what might be called Buddhist values. You know, conquer the cravings, rejoice in the song of the lark, embrace simplicity, that sort of thing. When I hear a teenager saying that he or she wants to be a millionaire when they grow up, I feel that this shows a marked lack of true ambition. Right now a butterfly is flitting past the shed door, and isn't that what is truly important?

It is. Most major religions stress the need for social solidarity and charity. Most folk tales, however, are about attaining wealth and status. Cinderella may be virtuous, but the story doesn't end with the prince leaving his palace and living with her among the mice and pumpkins. Being satisfied with your lot may make you happier, but it also makes the world duller. Margaret Atwood's young daughter and a friend once put on an impromptu play for their parents, which consisted of drinking tea and eating jam sandwiches. 'Is that all that's going to happen?' asked the author. 'Because if it is, we're going.'

Most of what we feel about fat cats is really envy, rather than the product of a developed sense of social fairness. Some schools of psychoanalysis believe that envy is an innate emotion, which simply exists in greater quantities in certain people than in others. And although envy is mostly negative, it can also, they think, perform the positive function of acting as a motivator.

Myself, I'm fed up with it. I spend all my money so that I can live next to Hampstead Heath, and that's just about it. Though some people are forced to work too hard in shitty jobs, no-one dies of poverty in this country any more. So unless we're talking seriously about changing our relationships with the genuinely poor of the world, then moaning about the rich makes little sense.