Money should never become our only goal

IT IS hard to justify the vast differences between the Western way of life and the conditions endured by those who live in the poorer parts of the world. It is only because their poverty is so far away from us that we can keep it out of our minds.

But sometimes the contrast is too much to bear. How can it possibly be right for a super-rich football club such as Manchester United to sell – for as much as £110 – a shirt made by women in Cambodian sweatshops for wages as little as 64p an hour?

These shirts are highly desired items. Young supporters clamour to wear them. The club can command astonishingly high prices for them. But where does the money go? Plainly, not to those who do the hardest work.

As it happens, the Cambodian factories where they are made comply with the laws of that country, but the harsh contrast between the two figures does not sit easily with the club’s standing in its own city, in Britain and the world.

Manchester United is not simply a business. It is a powerful influence in its community. It has a duty way beyond the mere making of money.

Capitalism did not flourish here just because men were free to make profits. The great inventor of economics, Adam Smith, always made it clear that morals were fundamental to prosperity. Trust, honesty and justice are the foundations of the wealth of nations.

This is not the only case of business using its power and cunning to avoid its moral obligations.

The online retailer Amazon manages, quite legally, to avoid paying huge amounts of tax which its struggling high street competitors cannot escape. Apple, Netflix and Google are equally skilful in keeping their tax bills low.

It is hard to prevent them. But that does not mean it is either wise or right for them to exploit their freedoms to the maximum, as they are doing now. On the contrary, if capitalism behaves in this crude and greedy fashion, exactly as the Marxists have always claimed it does, then the ultimate beneficiaries will be Leftist extremists. If they come to power, they will end prosperity for good.

Ethical capitalism is not just possible, but desirable. Gross inequalities, of the sort we expose here today, can be avoided by intelligent management, and they should be avoided, for the sake of free societies everywhere.