Who decides that and is it true or fair? If the CEO earns 25x the average employee salary would it be clear that they add 25x more value to the company than any other employee?
I'd say no. Salary is more a function of negotiating ability than value added. Consider this, does your salary fluctuate regularly as your performance waxes and wanes? Or does it stay relatively constant with occasional steps up?
The owners of the company? i.e. Shareholders. It's not anyone else's business. Workers are free to renegotiate their contract, resign, buy shares, or start their own company. Who else other than the owners should decide?
Let me show you how close to feudalism this idea is:
Serfs are free to renegotiate their constitution, move, buy land from their king, or start their own kingdom.
Now all these options sound a little more silly... Because we accept the power structure of feudalism.
But many doubt there is any power structure in capitalism.
Landless wage labourers? Yes. Debt based economies? Yes. Taxes given as handouts to the owners? Yes.
The differences between the structure of two are far more subtle than most people like to believe.
We are at a point on political democracy, that's great - but economically we are still kinda stuck in the 1700s ... We could try to democratize that too.
Part of the problem is that neoliberalism suggests that everyone should act like an entrepreneur, a CEO if you will. This is actually as silly as implying that if everyone acted like a prince or princess in feudalism, it would have been a fair system.
But you point to the "self made man". Statistically speaking, those are about as rare as someone marrying into royalty in classical feudalism. Pointing to that fact of course, didn't make feudalism fair either.
There's a real, leaky (they all are), power structure imposed by the system that can't be undone by the power of magical thinking.
That would be true if they success of the company was 100% depending on the companies ability alone, however it's not. There are many factors external to the company itself that are involved in creating successful companies.
jsprogrammer|10 years ago
sambe|10 years ago
kristopolous|10 years ago
Serfs are free to renegotiate their constitution, move, buy land from their king, or start their own kingdom.
Now all these options sound a little more silly... Because we accept the power structure of feudalism.
But many doubt there is any power structure in capitalism.
Landless wage labourers? Yes. Debt based economies? Yes. Taxes given as handouts to the owners? Yes.
The differences between the structure of two are far more subtle than most people like to believe.
We are at a point on political democracy, that's great - but economically we are still kinda stuck in the 1700s ... We could try to democratize that too.
Part of the problem is that neoliberalism suggests that everyone should act like an entrepreneur, a CEO if you will. This is actually as silly as implying that if everyone acted like a prince or princess in feudalism, it would have been a fair system.
But you point to the "self made man". Statistically speaking, those are about as rare as someone marrying into royalty in classical feudalism. Pointing to that fact of course, didn't make feudalism fair either.
There's a real, leaky (they all are), power structure imposed by the system that can't be undone by the power of magical thinking.
ThomPete|10 years ago