4 ms·
Reposting a comment from the article : At the core of these habits are important avenues for self fulfillment: exercise, healthy relationships, and non-work pu
by thewarrior 11y ago
Reposting a comment from the article :
At the core of these habits are important avenues for self fulfillment: exercise, healthy relationships, and non-work pursuits. We should certainly aspire to include some of them in our lives.
The issue for me isn't how exaggerated or true these claims are, but how they are being used by C-suite executives to justify their pay scale, power, and prestige.
The goal of these image obsessed executives is to build a myth of superiority both inside and outside of their organization that they are fundamentally different and better (and willing to sacrifice more) than the lowly ones who don't make it to the top. Further reinforcing this is the difficulty us mere mortals have in achieving a good paying job, financial solvency, healthy lifestyles, and strong relationships, but these people do it breathlessly easily. What choice do us mere mortals have but emulate these super-people with ever increasing amounts of our time in working to keep up?
Is it that much different than the Pharaohs and Emperors who fed the myths of their own super human or divine heritage to justify their privilege and power? The truth is that these CEO's retain an ever larger piece of the organization's surplus to spend on nannies, maids, and every other service imaginable while we in the middle class must work longer and longer hours to retain our salaried positions, leaving little if any time left to pursue a balanced and healthy lifestyle.
When will we realize these CEO's don't deserve these sky high salaries, CEO's need us for these organizations to function, and force them to return some of the surplus to their employees? They have no monopoly on aspirations or working hard to achieve them.
http://www.economist.com/comment/2974172#comment-2974172 http://www.economist.com/comment/2974172#comment-2974172
- olefoo 11y agoThe way to achieve this is to develop new forms of economic contract that allow independent collaborators to capture the economic benefits of their intellectual labor. That and automate the CEO role in the company as much as possible. The models for such organizations exist. We have the tools to build them. Why don't we see more of them around these days?
- digaozao 11y agoCan you show what model are you talking about? I am curious
- fmavituna 11y agoI see that CEOs are being picked on about really high salaries regularly, the real question is what would happen if they got paid much less? Company would make more profit and that profit would go to the shareholders. Honest questions: So why does it matter? Whether the part of money goes to a CEO or another rich shareholder? How does it change anything? To be honest pretty much in every company major shareholders make way more money than CEOs. Is it the idea that "middle class" can be a CEO so in theory it's attainable yet being a major shareholder is not even within the reach of "middle class" therefore it's almost being jealous of fellow man (CEO), because it's human yet major shareholders are more like "Pharaohs and Emperors" ?
- SturgeonsLaw 11y agoI think the disparity between CEO compensation and regular salaries is a proxy for the growing popular distaste towards income inequality in general.
- cryoshon 11y agoThis comment captures my sentiment as well. "We CEOs are actually ubermenschen, and as such, we have more than you do justly, and, in fact, deserve an even larger share than we currently have because of how inherently superior our habits and dispositions are." The CEO at my last company made 160x (!) the median employee compensation, and happened to be an ultramarathoner. I'm not sure which was more frustrating: the implied looking-down on the employees couched in faux politician-style chummy relatability, or the times when he said that "it's going to be a stressful company because that's who we are" before taking a three week vacation to run a marathon somewhere tropical.