Conusltant surgeons? Why they're as evil as stockbrokers in 2011!

Way back in the mists of time, circa 1995, I was a lowly student and undergraduate studying politics. One of my lecturers (in fact most of them) was an extreme left winger and member of the SWP, and I can't deny that I did enjoy winding the silly old bugger up.

Once such occasion was one of those seminar discussions where the subject of pay and worth came up. The question was put to the room of whether a stock broker was more deserving of their earnings than a highly skilled medical consultant surgeon. After all, one just played with other people's money whilst the other saved lives, yet the former more than likely earned more than latter.

Naturally, the answer (posed in a social science type elective course) was already presumed to be known. The consultant surgeon saves lives, the stockbroker is just an evil capatalist, ergo the consultant should earn more because of his worth to society. That the stockbroker helped generate wealth, which in turn generated growth and the ability to provide jobs wasn't important, he was just scum basically.

I mention this because something odd has happened recently amongst certain quarters of the Left. You see, the stockbroker and/or banker, is not alone in being a bogeyman any more. The consultant surgeon, once a shining example for card-carrying SWP lecturers on the inequity of earnings is now a bastard too. Hell, even GPs are under fire.

The GMB Union for example has a campaign going against changes in the NHS that is targeted not at the changes, but at the GPs on the basis they'll earn more money. Recently we had a story about how consultants in hospitals are earning thousands in overtime, with inevitable questioning about the morality of it and accusations that they're "playing the system"

You see, no longer are doctors and consultants who save people lives on a daily basis wirthy of remuneration for it. That the latter may know how to perform keyhole colorectal surgery and prolong or save the life of someone with colon cancer after years of training and learning is moot.

The bastards earn to much dammit, cut their pay, fuck the patient, what about the worker!

It's a funny old world init?