Maybe We're Going At This Wrong....
Mind The (CEO Pay) Gap - Forbes.com
An interesting little story about how the American executive can be expected to see his compensation package grow more slowly in coming years due to globalization...it got me to thinking that maybe we're approaching the issue of the widening gap between the rich and the poor the wrong way.
Maybe, instead of a minimum wage, we should have a maximum wage...say, oh, 20 times the wage of the lowest paid contractor in the company. As it stands at the present, there is no incentive, indeed dis-incentives exist, for the captain of the corporation to level the pay scale throughout the organization.
With a maximum wage in effect, the CEO would take care to make sure the janitorial contractor got a living wage--it would affect his potential salary far more than a performance-based package would, and it would have the effect of narrowing the gap between rich and poor far better than a tax-based redistribution scheme would.
I have no illusions that if such a scheme were enacted in the United States, there would not be massive flight of capital from the country--indeed, I would expect that there would soon be no corporations based here. There must be a way to get competent people to run corporations other than throwing bucketfuls of money at them; perhaps there are even a few that would enjoy working in an organization where the suits and the grunts enjoy closer lifestyle and sense of purpose and value in the company.
An interesting little story about how the American executive can be expected to see his compensation package grow more slowly in coming years due to globalization...it got me to thinking that maybe we're approaching the issue of the widening gap between the rich and the poor the wrong way.
Maybe, instead of a minimum wage, we should have a maximum wage...say, oh, 20 times the wage of the lowest paid contractor in the company. As it stands at the present, there is no incentive, indeed dis-incentives exist, for the captain of the corporation to level the pay scale throughout the organization.
With a maximum wage in effect, the CEO would take care to make sure the janitorial contractor got a living wage--it would affect his potential salary far more than a performance-based package would, and it would have the effect of narrowing the gap between rich and poor far better than a tax-based redistribution scheme would.
I have no illusions that if such a scheme were enacted in the United States, there would not be massive flight of capital from the country--indeed, I would expect that there would soon be no corporations based here. There must be a way to get competent people to run corporations other than throwing bucketfuls of money at them; perhaps there are even a few that would enjoy working in an organization where the suits and the grunts enjoy closer lifestyle and sense of purpose and value in the company.
posted by Drunkenrantz at 5:47 PM
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