BBC Salaries and the 'Paradox of Value'

The media - not least, the BBC itself - has had a field-day taking apart the data that the BBC has been required to publish on the salaries paid to people who appear on television; if they are paid more than the prime minister. These are only partial data, because [as has been pointed out in all the reports that I have seen] those presenters who sell their services through production companies are not paid salaries as such, so do not appear in the list. Those like Graham Norton, who are part salaried and part freelance only display the salary portion of their earnings: for this, and myriad other reasons, the data are of no effective use. But that has not presented any obstacle to the pontificators who have taken politically correct positions and argued that it is 'scandalous' that men are paid more than women, and that no person from an ethnic minority is among the highest-paid.

It would be possible for the BBC to award salaries [and refuse to employ non-salaried presenters] according to a popularity poll conducted by the Guardian, which was recently shown to the overwhelmingly the Corporation's favoured 'newspaper'; but it is most unlikely that the vast mass of the population would agree with that ranking. I am constantly astonished at the vulgarity of much of the output on all channels that appears to be highly popular.

Adam Smith, the founding father of the Econocracy, wrote about a so-called 'paradox of value'. Items that are absolute necessity for the continued survival of human beings, like bread and cheese, are cheap, while essentially 'useless' objects like gem diamonds are massively expensive. Human society is paradoxical: what people are prepared to strive and compete to get seems quite irrational to other people. Once a man or a woman has enough food to eat, a place to shelter and clothing that seems to them adequate, the preferences that they display thereafter if they are able to widen the pattern of their consumption seem utterly silly to other people. There are no natural laws to direct people's choices. Various religious guidance is offered; but more often than not that steers wealth towards the religion and those who lead it, and offers no valid guidance to individuals on how to manage their own disbursement of their incomes.

The medical professions have become vocal in expressing their view as to what consumption and behaviour is healthy and what is not, and sometimes there is sufficient evidence to convince people that the advice is basically sound. Politicians are presented with speeches to read out, in attempts to steer public behaviour in directions that are seen as affordable and socially desirable; but everyone views such utterances with cynicism.

Ultimately there is no valid system for valuation of anything or anybody's action. Some things, like poisons and poisoners, can generally be condemned; but they are at the extremes of consumer behaviour and they are threatening to the majority of consumers: so collective action against them is self-defence by the majority. There will never be a definition of 'value': so there is no 'true' way of differentiating Graham Norton from Fiona Bruce. They and their agents are left to haggle; and that is the only way it can be.