> Why has our society organized itself so that company executives win whether or not they do a good job? It's not like this was specifically planned. Our socie

> Why has our society organized itself so that company executives win whether or not they do a good job? It's not like this was specifically planned. Our society is organized as a capitalist society, which means people decide how much and in what conditions to pay others. In this case, the shareholders, via the board, have decided to pay certain compensation. Since it's their money on the line, and they're the ones with far more detailed knowledge of what's actually going on in the company, I don't see why it's any more "moral" for an outsider to second-guess their decision. (Of course, most shareholders aren't in any sense active, but they are supposed to be well represented by the board, and can replace it if need be). > One of the premises of giving executives high pay is that they are getting it for succeeding at running the business well, That's sometimes true. Sometimes even a well run company goes bankrupt, e.g. a video rental company when everyone switches to streaming, in which case the management might be doing a good job by extracting as much value as possible before. (Totally theoretical, I have no idea of the details in this case.) > but as we see time and time again they still get paid out even when they fail. And sometimes, they get paid far less. Sometimes they get paid to not make a mess. Sometimes they get paid because their contracts, negotiated beforehand, stipulate certain payouts whether or not they succeed, apparently because that's the price of hiring these people who are presumably good. Put another way - Michael Jordan was paid a lot of money to play basketball for some teams. They made the agreement based on his past performance. If his team had ended up not doing very well, it wouldn't have made his contract suddenly null and void - at most, future contracts would probably be at a lower price.