>The standard story is that salaries have remained flat. I've seen some people claim to the contrary (e.g. Russ Roberts) but I think that's too complicated for

>The standard story is that salaries have remained flat. I've seen some people claim to the contrary (e.g. Russ Roberts) but I think that's too complicated for a non-economist like me to get at the truth, so I'll just stick to the general consensus here. No need to bring up this side note if you're not going to use it as an argument or back it up then >And in this specific case, again, it's totally in the interest of the people who have money, to give less of it to executives. As another poster stated elsewhere in this thread, the observed behavior of boards and executives negotiating has not been of two independent parties. The executives are now not only socially connected but have a direct incentive to constantly increase pay for their friends, so that their friends return the favor. This is not using the shareholders money well, but just quid pro quo favors that fuck everyone outside of this in group[1]. Capitalism doesn't just work unregulated because parties quickly acquire power and then subvert the rules of capitalism to funnel even more power to themselves. We are directly observing executives of modern corporations doing this via their web of board seats and increasing each other's pay ad infinitum at the expense of shareholders, employees, and society [1]https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-wins-when-ceos-sit-on-multiple-boards-not-investors-1506418202 https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-wins-when-ceos-sit-on-multi... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate