There are ways to fix this recession. However, sooner than say “we are all in this together”, the rich must pay their share. That’s the answer, I’m afraid. Some people benefited hugely and lost greatly from a capitalism that went out of control via deregulation. Others gained and lost to some extent; yet others didn’t benefit at all or imperceptibly. We are clearly not “all in this together”.

 It’s insidious but it’s the mantra of power. However, it is a lie. The market was divisive, exalting competition and atomising people. That’s the way it was. It’s bizarre when people say – almost always the well-heeled – “we’re all in this together”. No, we’re not, actually. There is certainly a societal response to the recession but ever since Margaret Thatcher’s “there is no such thing as society”, it’s been difficult to find. Her economic policies – the politics of the New Right – prevailed until very recently.

 The notion of geometric or percentage cuts in pay is absurd. So, some person making a million euros or dollars takes, say, a 10 per cent pay cut. They make only €900,000. My heart bleeds for them. The poor, little, sweet things: they have only €900,000 for the year ahead. How will they manage to survive? Even if such people took 95 percent pay cuts, they’d still be ahead of the average wage in Ireland or the US.

 Only a cap on salaries will do. In the Sunday Independent last week, Gene Kerrigan suggested €100,000 ($128,000) as a maximum. I don’t know if €100,000 is the figure. My own feeling is that something closer to €50,000 ($64,000) should be the maximum payable to any person for three years. That would leave me, for instance, some tens of thousands of euro behind what I currently make. That’s the deal, however. If people have huge mortgages, freeze them and begin to pay in a maximum of three years.

 The point is to cap salaries. Still, it should only be for three years. If, after then, people wish to return to greater differentials – though hopefully not as absurd as prevailed in banking (and is still prevailing) up to this recession – that’s fair enough. But the propaganda in Ireland during the current recession has been abysmal. Maybe with President Obama, there’s been hope but that’s not been the Irish experience to date.

 What values will emerge from the current recession? Already, we’ve seen distrust of the market with the mostly ruling Fianna Fail party (FF makes up about 90 per cent of the coalition government) at its lowest ever ranking in the polls. Normally, Fianna Fail can command about 42 percent of the total vote. One Millward Brown poll in the Irish Independent showed the party to have lost 17 percent of its support. It was down at 25 percent. In Ireland, that’s unprecedented.

 It means that Fianna Fáil are no longer the biggest party in Ireland. That honour falls to Fine Gael. In last month’s poll they were on 30 percent. However, there is sufficient dissatisfaction with their leader, Enda Kenny, that arguably, they should be more than five percentage points above Fianna Fáil. Mr Kenny remains on a 29 percent rating as leader. That is even less than the 30pc achieved by Mr Noonan, as leader of Fine Gael in May 2002.

 Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the poll was the good showing of the Labour Party, up eight percent to 22. Their leader, Eamon Gilmore has the highest satisfaction of any leader in the Dail at 52 per ent. People want untamed, unsafe, undue capitalism reined-in. Most people do not trust it; in fact, they fear it.

 However, unless Brian Cowen, leader of Fianna Fail, stems public dissatisfaction with the Government, his party could be relegated to third place. It’s clear, that in Ireland anyway, people are increasingly attracted to the soft left politics of Labour. They are, attracted too, it must be said, to the right-wing politics of Fine Gael. With a different leader, they would be in power next time. As it is, Enda Kenny may be blocking them.

 I don’t know Enda Kenny. Many people say he’s a nice man – amiable, affable and accommodating. Maybe he’s too nice for politics. I don’t know. But, with Labour almost doubling his satisfaction rating among voters, he really needs to ask himself if he should step aside. That’s unlikely though.

It’s unlikely too there’ll be any cap on salaries. That wouldn’t be capitalism, after all. Notwithstanding that it ought only be for three years, allow everyone to make a maximum of between €50,000 ($64,000) and €100,000 ($128,000). Tax the rest at 100 per cent. We expect people to live on €10,000 - €15,000 or as Hurricane Katrina revealed in the US, an average income of $8,000 - $10,000. That’s obscene.

 It won’t happen because the people in control of the propaganda machinery, are largely the same people who eulogised the unregulated ‘free’ market. Already, they’ve suggested geometric pay cuts as consumerism has consumed itself. The rush towards the soft left policies of the Irish Labour Party or the liberalism (in US terms) of President Obama may not be enough. The system has been wrecked through greed.

So, take proportional pain for three years? Maybe . . . but we’d probably need to be “all in this together”.

We are not and we won’t be until we cap salaries for three years.