Sumptuary laws

John Hinderaker at Powerline highlighted a story out of the UK:

The government will publish new proposals to “get tough” on excessive pay in January, the deputy prime minister said. Among likely steps is widening the membership of remuneration committees, which set pay, to include workers.

Hinderaker sees this as fuzzy thinking. Sure the British public sector is on austerity measures, but why would government seek to set a pay cap on executive compensation in private companies? Isn't that rightly the business of a company's directors and shareholders? Doesn't it reduce the tax base, and discourage enterprise?

The proposal sounds like a return to sumptuary laws. As luxury goods began to come available in medieval Europe, conspicuous consumption mounted. In order to keep liquid wealth from upsetting the social order, which was based on land rents and the like, the rulers imposed laws that restricted conspicuous consumption according to rank. Only the king could wear certain kinds of furs. Dukes and barons could wear other, lesser furs. Likewise with other goods and with other classes--can't have the bishops tooling around in cloth of gold, when the archbishops can't afford it, etc.

The point of it is to enforce a class structure that is divorced from wealth or earning power. This made a lot of sense in a medieval monarchy. Does it make sense in 21st Century Europe? It does if you're an apparatchik of the new European superstate. Americans, however, would be wise to start sharpening their pitchforks and heating up the tar.