How about based on the value of the services provided? Does a $20 million a year CEO really provide the same value, the same contribution to profits, as 400 front line workers making $50k a year? Does a $20 million a year CEO provide twice the value of a $10 million a year CEO?
—Peter
Hi Mike,
No, but the value should include paying a living wage to those who produced the item.
My right to pay less shouldn’t include paying another person a sub-standard wage.
AW
Great of you for declaring that to be true.
How is it different than during the industrial revolution when we had children workers, no 40 hour work week, no OSHA, etc. Somehow the 1980s and after were much worse?
Mike
Certainly not. But then two wrongs don’t make a right.
I mean, should a genetically tall person get paid millions to bounce a ball around and throw it in a hoop? Yet somehow the masses admire this and can’t get enough of it even though it doesn’t feed them, while the poor farm worker who does feed them barely scrapes by (if that)
Mike
I generally agree. But what if the producer it making something that no one wants? Maybe it is “trashy” art…maybe it is a terrible YouTube channel. Should we make sure they are adequately paid for their efforts on a hourly basis? Who decides what work is deserving?
Mike
Mike, last I knew 1890 and 1980 were two different points in time. Not sure how you got onto 1890 when you know the practices were wrong. Meanwhile it might be very comfortable using other people but the millennials wont put up with it. So change your retirement plans.
Some years ago (probably in the 1980s), in a discussion of “excessive” salaries, someone (facetiously) postulated that if you permit person A to pay person B 25 cents for the privilege of watching person B play in a basketball game, you were abusing person A. And to prevent that abuse, you must forbid person A from paying that “exorbitant” price.
At the time, as it worked out, the highest-paid player in the NBA, receiving a salary well above some people’s threshold for “excessive,” was being paid approximately 25 cents per instance of one person watching - in person or on television - one game that player was in.
The owner/producer decides what work is deserving of the investment of their time and money. If they choose correctly, they reap the rewards via profits. If they choose poorly, then some old knight watches them disintegrate into dust (at least that’s what happened in an Indiana Jones movie I saw).
In either case, the worker should be paid a fair wage whether the owner/producer decides to build an F150 or an Edsel.
AW
It is amazing how you know so much about everything and are bold enough to think you have any idea about my retirement.
Mike
Well Mike you are treating the well being of millions of people as an opportunity for using them. That sets up you as with money and others without. I am concerned with those without. Your arrogance towards their work as not with much merit is the real generalization and the real arrogance. My friends with money generally are long retired and not worried about paying people properly.