Now, it could be argued that to an extent, this theory already exists in life. But I have been bantering around this idea of a socialist friendship.

The way it would work is reasonably simple and is as follows:

All pub rounds, dinners, holidays etc are split in a ratio proportional to your earnings. So, if you earn the most in the group, you end up paying the most. If you earn the least, then you shell out the least. Everyone still puts in, but they just put in a percentage. You may only buy every sixth shout at the pub. Make sense?

For this to work, you obviously need to share the very sensitive fact of how much money you earn. This needn’t be shared with others outside the system. But that is fundamental to this idea working.

The big winners out of this idea are the lower end of the group. But what it allows is for more mates to do more things together. So I guess that means that everyone is a winner.

Now, as I mentioned, this kind of thing happens organically within friendships. The people with more cash naturally offer to pay for more things. And the guys at the bottom get helped out by the guys in the middle. And they in turn get helped out by the guys at the top.

But I think there is something in the notion of all things being equal that I really like.