Who creates more wealth in society – bankers or nurses?

‘All of us should be disgusted by the alarming disparities in access to the necessities that promote the good life and human flourishing.’ Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

Julia Davis and Winsome Hill are surely right (One of us is a millionaire, the other a care worker. The cruel divide between rich and poor disgusts us both, 1 December). All of us should be disgusted by the alarming disparities in access to the necessities that promote the good life and human flourishing.

In 2014, I co-edited a book exploring the relationship between theology and economics. In a chapter on human and financial value, Bishop Alan Wilson and Canon Rosie Harper posited a scenario in which a banker is seriously injured while travelling to work. Their life is saved by a team of paramedics and nurses, leading to the conclusion that “a banker is no more a wealth creator than the nurse who saves his life in casualty, and no less”.