August 12th - No surprise that wages are going down!

I'm getting quite excited because the more I begin to grasp what industrial capitalism based on consumerism is about, the more easily I can understand why the world appears to be going mad.
I woke up this morning to the news that UK wages have gone down by 5.5% in three years. Yesterday I was walking on the Thames path west of London where houses cost millions and luxury river cruises are moored at the bottom of the garden. The divide between the rich and the poor is getting ever wider and it's been shown* that social unrest and misery among the population are much more prevalent in unequal societies.
So, what's going on? Not difficult to see that globalisation and huge movements of working people across the globe are driving down the living standard of workers in richer countries.
Will an employer take on someone who has grown up used to living in a modest semi with a modest standard of living,  an annual holiday and a regular 9 - 5 working day in reasonable conditions if he can take on someone who has moved to this country in the hope of escaping abject poverty and deprivation and is prepared to work for a pittance, live in cramped conditions and work all hours God sends so he can send money home to his family?
I guess the crunch will come when the working population's wages have been reduced so much that they can't continue to 'consume' in the way capitalism needs.
Then there are the rich.  What's all that extreme wealth about? Nothing wrong with having money but REALLY does anyone need so very much?  Oliver James's 'Affluenza' suggests that many folk are pretty disappointed that loads a money doesn't bring them happiness. And where does all that wealth come from? Have they got it simply because they've been working harder than the lazy unemployed?  I suspect that might be so, but there are also very very many ways to be rich without (I suspect) working massively hard. 'Financial services' with massive bonuses and financial deals which make millions overnight;  those who bought up all the Council houses and are renting them out at a healthy profit;  drug dealing, people smuggling, massive inherited wealth ... and the rest.
Before I cast English-born workers as work shy (am sure there are some!) and before I admire the wealthy for being so very hard working (I'm sure there are some!) I need to think about how our economic system has put up the barriers or provided the opportunities.






* The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett