At £300,000 per week, Wayne Rooney is about to become the English Premier League’s all-time highest paid footballer.

How could a hot-headed, granny-banging Shrek lookalike possibly deserve this much for kicking a ball around?

It’s very simple.

Because the market says so.

He’s entitled to every last penny.

But is he? Really?

There is a loud and passionate argument against Shrek’s pay raise.

One that goes (and often spells) like this:

Ah, yes.

Wealth Redistribution: splitting the right from the left since the beginning of politics. Second only to God Almighty.

The NHS attack is a common analogy used to explain why men like Wayne Rooney should be held in contempt for rolling in the moolah.

“I saw Aunt Betsy scraping her pennies together in the post office today. Bloody terrible, it is. She does real work that saves lives. If anyone deserves a pay raise, it’s Betsy. Not these footballers who only work 12 hours a week!”

Or so goes the line of thinking.

Yes, Wayne is rich and the vast majority of Aunt Betsys are not.

We get it.

So loaded is Shrek, in fact, that he can afford to buy an hour-long romp with one of his premium grandma hookers and still come away making a net profit under services provided. Now that is rich.

And it’s all because of the market — a judge of value somewhat more sophisticated than a Daily Mail comments section free-for-all.

There is a school of thought in the UK that goes like this:

High wages should be reserved only for those who perform life saving feats, or me.

Or me?!

Well, why not?

Show me somebody who doesn’t think they deserve a pay raise and I’ll show you somebody who has reached the very precipice of their career ladder.

I have trouble finding those from ‘the 99%’ who are happy to turn down a pay raise on the basis that somebody else deserves one more.

Most of us take what we can get, while we can still get it.

Those who don’t fall in to two groups:

a) Philanthropists: who often spend the prime of their careers as devout capitalist pigs.

or

b) Hippies: who believe that money can’t buy happiness, and seldom give it the chance.

Wayne Rooney is called a mercenery for taking the best possible deal on the market.

The same could be said for movie stars, bankers and the entire herd of Kardashians.

But it can also be said for me, and probably you, and certainly anybody who ever let their eyes linger on the salaries in the local job listings.

The cold, hard truth is this:

What you earn has absolutely nothing to do with what you deserve.

Nothing, zero, nada.

Your passions won’t make you rich, and neither will your daily good deed count.

Only the market can make you rich.

If you want to earn a lot of money, here are the two best options you have — besides winning the lottery:

1. Develop a skill that somebody will pay a premium for.
2. Develop a product/service that can be packaged and sold for a lot of money.

Given the choice, most people are already reaching for their lucky dips.

In a parallel universe, the next Wayne Rooney is developing his football skills and getting ready to sell them for £300,000 per week.

A thousand pounds for every brain cell, or so the joke goes on Twitter.

Well, I would be retweeting my way to the bank on those numbers.

It doesn’t matter what Wayne deserves to earn, the point is that he does indeed earn it.

And who benefits?

Shrek, undoubtedly.

But 45% of Shrek’s pay raise gets sucked back in to the system as taxed income. Which in turn is redistributed to pay for things like… NHS doctors and surgeons.

Of course, the economics are forgotten in a heartbeat. The real agenda has nothing to do with doctors and surgeons. Or economics.

It has everything to do with jealousy.

It’s his wage vs. your wage. Simple as that.

There is only one judge to determine who wins; who makes a killing and who breaks a back for small change. His name is the market.

And a cruel judge he can be.

“What is somebody willing to pay me?” This is the only truth that has any meaningful impact on your earning potential.

The way many people lead their lives battling for wealth, you’d forgive the market for stopping the fight in the first round.

They are woefully unprepared, trained in the wrong disciplines, mastered up to the eyeballs in degrees that might as well be titled ‘fannying around’, pushing shit up a mountain in jobs that can never give them what they want. Because what they want leads back to more money.

If the market had a voice, it would need only four words to get its message across:

“Work smarter, not harder.”

Not everybody defines happiness as the pursuit of money.

That’s probably a good thing.

But if you are one of the many who do, you need only look at the market for the clearest sign of what you should be doing with your life.

Affiliate marketers get that.

Wayne Rooney might only have 300 brain cells but he also gets that.