CEOs are assholes - and richer CEOs, more so [Archive]

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MarxSchmarx

7th July 2010, 00:39

Higher income inequality betweem CEOs and the workers leads to behavior indicative of "maltreatment of employees". At least according to a study by American academics:

CEO pay has been blasted for increasing risk to the economy, being out of proportion to ordinary wages and being unrelated to actual company performance. And, according to a new study, a high salary may actually make your company's CEO meaner. (Hat tip to Harvard Business Review (http://blogs.hbr.org/research/2010/06/executive-compensation-the-mor.html))
In the study's white paper, "When Executives Rake in Millions: Meanness in Organizations," (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1612486_code1468686.pdf?abstractid=1612486&mirid=1) professors from Harvard, Rice and the University of Utah argue that rising income inequality between executives and ordinary workers results in "power asymmetries in the workplace such that top executives come to view lower level workers as dispensable objects not worthy of human dignity."

Up next: Water is wet!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/the-more-ceos-make-the-wo_n_636606.html

Stephen Colbert

7th July 2010, 01:13

Klaatu

7th July 2010, 01:56

A temporary solution: a steeply-graduated income tax up to 99.9%.

A permanent solution: Nationalize all of industry; establish CEO pay at not more than twice that of worker pay.
(as opposed to 1,000 times that of worker pay now) :blink:

Klaatu

7th July 2010, 05:05

This is what I've been saying all along, but all my friends that are studying business administration follow the whole "they have the right to earn that money, flat tax, free market" blah blah horseshit

I love the way Libertarians claim that they "have a right to this and a right to that..." citing the U.S. Constitution at every opportunity...

Where in the Constitution does it say that certain individuals, working for the same company, "have a right" to earn 1,000 times that of the average worker? :confused: These people are eminent gods with special unearthly talents? (yeah right)

Special talent, special vision, my ass
"There is nothing you can do, that can't be done..." - All You Need is Love, The Beatles

Rusty Shackleford

7th July 2010, 07:01

7th July 2010, 07:36

Now why exactly are there even CEOs in this "permanent solution"?

Rusty Shackleford

7th July 2010, 07:37

Now why exactly are there even CEOs in this "permanent solution"?

change CEO to elected workers representative. give that person 1/4 more pay than everyone else.

Klaatu

7th July 2010, 18:22

Of course, the new worker co-op would vote on these wages. And someone with more educational background in business and management is needed to organize the process. Actually "twice the pay" is in fact extreme; my superintendent only made about one-third more per week as I made, working production. And yes, "CEO" would no longer be king of the company (as things are now, in capitalist systems)

change CEO to elected workers representative. give that person 1/4 more pay than everyone else.

CEO = Company-Elected Operator

Die Neue Zeit

8th July 2010, 04:44

Higher income inequality betweem CEOs and the workers leads to behavior indicative of "maltreatment of employees". At least according to a study by American academics:

Up next: Water is wet!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/the-more-ceos-make-the-wo_n_636606.html

Comrade, I forgot to post my "Socio-Income Democracy, Part II" stuff as a separate Theory thread in addition to an article, so here goes:

Socio-Income Democracy, Part II: Maximum Wage vs. Direct Democracy in Income Multiples

“Pay matters. How much you earn can determine your lifestyle, where you can afford to live, and your aspirations and status. But to what extent does what we get paid confer ‘worth’? Beyond a narrow notion of productivity, what impact does our work have on the rest of society, and do the financial rewards we receive correspond to this? Do those that get more contribute more to society? With controversial bonuses being paid out this Christmas in bailed-out banks, we believe that it is time to ask challenging questions such as these.” (Eilís Lawlor, Helen Kersley, and Susan Steed)

In December 2009, the UK-based New Economics Foundation released a well-publicized report on whether modern pay structures reflect the value of various jobs. Eilís Lawlor, Helen Kersley, and Susan Steed examined six jobs: corporate executives in banks, similar executives in advertising, tax accountants, hospital cleaners, child care workers, and waste recycling workers. The first three were found to be destroying value for British society, while the last three were found to be creating value.

Despite this research and subsequent policy recommendations, the report was within the conceptual framework of the maximum wage. Indeed, the draft party program of Die Linke (The Left party in Germany), released in March 2010, called for limiting manager salaries to “20 times the lowest-paid workers in the company,” but called for nothing broader.

Earlier I introduced the concept of “socio-income democracy” when discussing direct democracy in taxation of the various, class-based types of income as an immediate but real, reform-enabling reform. What the maximum wage framework does not take into consideration are property income, normal and windfall profits, dividends, and capital gains. Moreover, its proponents – “socialists” and otherwise – dare not venture outside the limits of economism, simply by calling for a single relative limit legislated into law.

Taken to at least an intermediate step, “socio-income democracy” is also for direct proposals and rejections – at the national level and above – regarding the creation and adjustment of income multiples in all industries, for all major working-class and other professions, and across all types of income. Thus, the three most prominent bourgeois occupations covered are the corporate executive, the celebrity and any associated formal or informal “brands” (arising from professional athleticism or general entertainment), and the multi-millionaire investor. It should be noted that the word “income” is subject to debate, since it should not cover inheritances (discussed elsewhere), and since it may or may not cover things like lottery winnings.

Does this reform facilitate the issuance of either intermediate or threshold demands? That would depend on how one relates this reform to the measure of aligning the interests of “agent” officials in all political and related administrative offices with the interests of the “principal” population as a whole by means of aligning standards of living (towards some average standard of living for professional and other skilled workers). Discussion on the former could be a means of facilitating discussion on the latter, or vice versa, but neither measure is really dependent upon the other. No other intermediate or threshold demand is at stake.

Does this reform enable the basic principles to be “kept consciously in view”? If the maximum wage framework alone is already seen as one of class struggle, how much more is this expanded “socio-income democracy”? Next, there is the idea within social labour that each individual should contribute according to personal ability and receive personal want “according to his work” (despite the Soviet distortion of that slogan towards ignoring personal need). Also, the problem of elite emigration poses the need for transnational politics.

REFERENCES

A Bit Rich by Eilís Lawlor, Helen Kersley, and Susan Steed [http://www.neweconomics.org/sites/neweconomics.org/files/A_Bit_Rich.pdf]

Program of the Left Party (Draft) by Oskar Lafontaine and Lothar Bisky [http://die-linke.de/programm/programmentwurf/]

Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1936) by Nikolai Bukharin and Joseph Stalin [http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/1936toc.html]