I don't believe it
can be fixed because of the nature of our system. Capping pay to tackle wealth disparity is like sticking a band-aid over a decapitated body that's squirting blood all over the place. Believe me, I've tried. (Not really).
The main problem is that the traditional employer/employee relationship is inherently abusive, regardless of pay levels. Imagine you were going to join an organization, but you could choose to work as an equal or a servant. Nobody in their right mind would choose servitude over equality. The reason that so many people do live to serve is because of a lack of meaningful choice. It's the result of exploitation.
I know a common response to this is that they just need to work harder, or study, or relocate. Several years ago I would have said the same thing because I wanted it to be true. My arguments on the internet were riddled with instances of the
just world fallacy. Thinking laterally for a moment, if everyone in the world performed perfectly and achieved equal results, there would still be gross inequality and suffering. It's because of limited opportunities and unequal access to resources, but I might be jumping ahead a bit there.
Inequality is the result of an imbalance of power rather than an imbalance of wealth, though the former eventually leads to the disparity in earnings. Wealth inequality is a nice convenient distraction from the real issue, and often skews the debate. A sizeable portion of the public subscribe to the idea that wealth is automatically the result of success, but any objective look at the situation shows that this is untrue. I think that it's the just-world fallacy coming into play again. People are anxious and looking for some sort of order or meaning to things.
Because people automatically attribute wealth to success, they jump to the conclusion that redistribution of wealth is unfair. In some cases it might be, but this is the result of trying to tackle the symptom instead of the cause. Some people do earn wealth due to their own hard work and merit, but they end up caught in the same net as the ones who don't. It's like trying to cram the wrong jigsaw piece into a hole.
The imbalance of power that allows people to be exploited is down to unequal access to the Earth's living space and resources. These things were essentially free - available to use for any living thing that needed it (for 3.5 billion years!). Okay, that's not entirely accurate, but it's close enough for me to make my point. My point is that the ability to share in the Earth's resources is not something given, it's something that exists unless taken away. As far as I can see, the only reason to arbitrarily deny this ability to masses of people is to put them in a position where they are powerless. (He who controls the spice...).
The consequences of this should be obvious. You can't live independently, so you have to go to someone who has what you need. In return they can pretty much demand what they like. Yes, there are multiple people you can go to, but there are also far more people like you that they have to choose from. Opting out isn't possible, so what happens? Yeah, you're a serf.
In order to "succeed" you often end up becoming the master of someone else. The rationale is that people need to work for others or they'll starve. That's true, but that doesn't mean servitude is the answer. Wouldn't enabling them to work as an equal also allow them to earn a living?
The system we have now is not so different from feudalism now that I think about it. Instead of being rewarded land from your master you can buy it, but you earn money by working for your master. Same difference if you ask me. Some of us even have the same aristocracy as we did back then, and they own more than a third of my country's land, lol.
So to cut a long post short, you fix corporate corruption by elliminating the ability for people to obtain positions of privilege and abuse that position to subjugate others.
And just to clarify, I'm not a communist, socialist, anarchist, or whatever. I don't label myself; it's boring and clouds the debate. I don't have a preference for planned economies or free markets. I'm not against property as long as it doesn't cause suffering or destitution for others. I'm not against business as long as it's voluntary and grown through merit. I believe that what people want to do with their share is up to them. Maybe people should even have free land for building a home on.
We already agree that human rights can't be given away, even voluntarily. I think a share of the Earth should be impossible to lose as well. Doing so leaves you at the mercy of others.
PS I lied about cutting it short.
Author
Topic: How to fix corporate corruption (Read 5286 times)