It's lonely at the top – because there is nothing there

Money hasn't bought Tiger love and it can't buy Nicholas a decent train experience (unless the state will finance his first-class habit). The only answer for both men is less personal wealth, less belief in different rules for life at the "top" and a more equal society. Nothing less will save Tiger from himself or provide Nick with the productive rail journey he craves at a price the public purse will weather. Not surprisingly, I doubt either man sees it that way.

It may seem pointless to focus on that scripted performance by Tiger Woods. And yet, data shows oil trading in New York fell by a third and trading volumes on all US stock exchanges fell by a fifth for the duration of his TV apology.

If Woods is addicted to sex, then the world is addicted to Woods. For one reason – he is the principal actor in America's founding myth.

Woods is a self-made man who has reached The Top. So his speech was no less interesting for being calculated.

"I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled."

The message from Woods (or his minders) is that too much money corrupts. Too much celebrity skews perspective. And yet he clearly intends to re-enter that celebrity maelstrom as soon as his wife and sponsors give him the all-clear.

Never mind question marks over his sincerity. Woods – like any addict – needs to be saved from himself and separated from his drug. Life at the top.

Woods hasn't grasped a fundamental truth. There never will be a material reward commensurate with the hard work of sustaining success. Booze, burgers, porn, illicit sex – you name it and excessive consumption of it only damages and isolates the user.

Woods reckons his problem was choosing casual sex as the reward for all those years of hard work. What material reward would have been less damaging and still intensely pleasurable (as rewards are meant to be?) Rhubarb?

The British and American models have a huge emotional investment in the importance and transformational nature of reaching the top and avoiding the bottom in life – even though most of us actually inhabit the space in between.

To the victor the spoils – it's the only reason a nonsensical voting system like first-past-the-post could still have any defenders. And the only reason the public will probably be unperturbed at news that Gordon Brown (and Tony Blair) have been f-ing and blinding their way round Downing Street for decades.

Adversarial politics means we reward the winner of a gladiatorial-style election with unrestrained power. And suspect any other arrangement that promises compromise, restraint or balance as weak.

It's tough at the top. Well it is. Especially the top we have created – about as inhabitable as Superman's kryptonite repository. Powerful, lonely and barren.

It's the very notion of "top" and "reward" that need deconstructing, not Tiger Woods. The divorce rate amongst American sportsmen suggests his experience is the rule not the exception. British papers filled with the indiscretions of Vernon Kay, Ashley Cole and David Beckham suggest the Americans are not alone.

This is not an apology for promiscuous men or a call to sympathise with poor little rich kids. This is a powerful argument in favour of equality.

Life at the top is surrounded by a powerful mythology. Woods has just exposed it. All you get more of at the top is the dangerous belief you are special and due a reward.

Evidence suggests the opposite. The amount of happiness extracted from each extra pound of income declines steeply beyond an annual income of 30-40k. The same is true of time. Some spare time is great – too much is a great anxiety-creating burden.

There is no big reward for success. No bumper prize.

Woods has revealed the "top" for what it is. Not a place of transformation or personal liberation. Just a place – very much like any other.

The emptiness of that discovery must be shocking. Something big is meant to change on reaching the top and since it generally doesn't, the false "rewards" of illicit sex, drugs, alcohol and bad behaviour can easily become addictive.

Poor lost boys? Not a bit of it.

Woods makes an eloquent case not just for his graceful Nordic wife but for the Nordic Model. After a certain level of income the rich and powerful are stocking up nothing but trouble for themselves – and for us.

A state – balanced by consensus – could use surplus cash to make the rich happier by providing the social goods they – individually – cannot.

Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Winterton, for example, makes a great case for massive investment in our railways and rolling stock. He is right about the difficulty of working on trains in standard class.

I support Sir Nick in demanding that MPs should be financed to travel in conditions that let them work. I also demand that right for everyone else. Sir Nick's accurate description of life in second class is the best argument yet for radical reform of our transport system so that "perks" like a seat, a bit of a table, a plug and wifi connection are available to all – as they are in mainland Europe – and do not depend upon being able to pay a whacking surcharge.

Would I pay higher taxes to guarantee this and other social goods – yes I would. And I'd sing hallelujah as the snobbishness and selfishness supported by income-based apartheid finally bites the dust.