Recently I read the excellent "Hackers and Painters" by Paul Graham. The book is mostly a series of essays on the art of programming but he also strays into some other territory such as wealth creation.

One of his conjectures is that if Karl Marx was to come back to life and visit the offices of a large company in the western world then his first impression would be that his future vision had come to reality. The reason for this would be that, although there are obviously huge differences in wealth between those at the top of the organisation and those at the bottom, those differences are not immediately obvious. Compared to Karl Marx's day, rich and poor within modern society eat the same kind of food, wear the same sort of clothes and have broadly the same access to healthcare.

Karl Marx would probably also be bemused by the incidence of obesity in modern society. In the 19th century the working classes mostly wouldn't have the luxury of getting fat - an inadequate diet and grinding physical labour would have seen to that. These days obesity is more prevalent amongst the lower socio-economic groups.

In this context I was interested to see this article on the BBC web site describing a treadmill workstation that has been designed to enable overweight employees to shed some poundage whilst doing their work. Karl Marx, who lived in London from 1851 until his death in 1883, would have associated treadmills with the workhouses, those feared institutions which provided a safety net for those in society most wretched and unable to support themselves. Funny how times change!