Faiza
We need a maximum wage to complement the minimum wage. That is, we need maximum pay ratios within companies and across sectors to put an end to chief executives getting paid more than 250 times what cleaning staff earn. Why? The top three reasons are:
Greater equality: rising wage disparities are one of the key drivers of inequality. By putting a plug on both ends of the pay scale we help ensure decent living standards for all and avoid the negative consequences (eg higher crime, poorer public health) of living in a highly unequal society.
The need to tame executive pay: extremely high levels of pay among executives have encouraged risk-taking behaviour (leading to the banking crisis) and have been found to hinder, not aid, the overall productivity of a company.
Tackle over-consumption and debt: as social beings we constantly rate ourselves relative to others. Keeping up with the Joneses in an era of high inequality has led people to take on higher levels of debt and to over-consume at a level they and the planet cannot sustain.
Beyond the costs to society, academic evidence shows that once people earn an annual wage above $80,000 their wellbeing grows by very little. Thus a maximum wage would help both business and society without damaging the wellbeing of the well-off.
Max
The neoliberal view of inequality – rejoicing in it as evidence of meritocracy – and the view articulated by proponents of The Spirit Level1 – that inequality is the main cause of modern social ills – are both inaccurate and unhelpfully dogmatic.
Runaway gaps between earners can have a negative impact upon social cohesion, behaviour, health and wellbeing. But inequality isn’t simply an evil to be addressed. Whilst it may well be wrong that the Chief Executive of a corporation earns 250 times the wage of their most lowly employee, it is manifestly fair that their most lowly employee should earn substantively more than someone who chooses not to go to work and to rely on welfare instead. Inequality is not always a social evil; sometimes it is a social good, spurring individuals to work, aspire and succeed.
Wage caps are a sledgehammer solution, therefore, to a nuanced issue. We do not want to limit the wealth that may be produced and enjoyed by entrepreneurs, but we do want to encourage business leaders to help reduce the earnings gap.
This is best pursued through social pressure on companies to state and stick to pay-ratios. Transparency in reporting and pressure through state procurement (as has worked well over the Living Wage in London) can get results without resort to simplistic, dogmatic and blunt legislative tools.
Faiza
The assertion that wage inequality spurs us to work does not uniformly hold true…
Full article and comments HERE:
• Protesters threaten more Wall St demos
US activists say they will march on Wall Street again this Wednesday despite the arrests of more than 700 protesters who blocked weekend traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.
As the loosely-organised protests entered their third week, some 800 defiant demonstrators maintained a presence in New York’s financial district on Sunday.
“Arrest one of us and two more appear. We are a legion. For we are many,” said Robert Cammisos, a 49-year-old former construction worker who was briefly detained Saturday during a major demonstration in New York against government-backed banking bailouts and corporate influence in US politics.
Police said most of those arrested were issued criminal court summons and citations for disorderly conduct before being released later in the day.
The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement has overtaken a park near the heart of global finance, where hundreds of mostly young activists hoist banners like “Don’t be shy, join us” and “Hitler’s bankers – Wall Street,” and chant slogans against big business moguls.
“A lot of people are back. This is a group that will not go away,” Mr Cammisos said, gesturing at a crowd gathered nearby.
Protests have spread to other cities across the country, from Washington and Boston to Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
During Saturday’s impromptu march to Brooklyn, demonstrators filled both the bridge’s pedestrian walkway and the roadway, bringing traffic to a halt and forcing police to shut down the key connection between Manhattan and Brooklyn for several hours.
Some of the demonstrators carried hand-drawn placards that read “End the Fed” and “Pepper spray Goldman Sachs” in what police described as a peaceful protest that nevertheless saw hundreds detained for public order offences.
The movement, inspired by pro-democracy Arab Spring movements roiling North Africa and the Middle East, said it planned to hold its next march Wednesday afternoon from City Hall to the financial district.
Activists began their campaign by occupying Zuccotti Park, in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, on September 17 and have since held protests outside the New York Stock Exchange and NYPD headquarters.
“We are the majority. We are the 99 per cent. And we will no longer be silent,” the movement said in a statement.
