'According to the ethos of capitalism, a person's position in the class structure reflects his/her importance to the functioning of society [...]. Each person's income is supposed to be a monetary quantification of their individual worth which, again, is supposedly determined by the contribution that they make to the life of the wider community. What contribution does Morrissey make to our world, though? He sings songs. Granted, he has to write the lyrics to them first, but even so, what he does is, he stands on a stage and he sings songs... ...for a living. He gets to travel the world, singing his songs to thousands of people who respond by hanging on his every word, telling him they love him and generally treating him like God. Back-breaking stuff.
Blasphemous though it is, I can think of a variety of professions more valuable than pop singers. Not only are they more valuable as people, but I reckon they probably work harder too. To take just a couple examples: the average qualified nurse is paid less than £30,000 per annum and a primary school teacher is on just slightly more. If a firefighter were to work for
seven hundred years, s/he still wouldn't be able to accumulate £20 million. Now, I dunno about you, but as far as I'm concerned, in a competition between someone who, as part of their job description, saves people's lives -
literally - and someone who makes commodified leisure products for the entertainment industry, I know which one
I think "earns" their money.'