> I am arguing this. Enron and Microsoft are examples. What small company CEO is capable of directly blowing up billions of dollars? Or with Nadela, pulling off

> I am arguing this. Enron and Microsoft are examples. What small company CEO is capable of directly blowing up billions of dollars? Or with Nadela, pulling off a turnaround worth multiple billions? These are larger effects that are inaccessible elsewhere. But Enron is the absolute extreme case, not the typical case - and even there, there were large numbers of individuals involved in Enron's scandals so you can't just point to the CEO. Where's the evidence that Nadela was the primary factor in Microsoft's performance in the last 10 years? Was Steve Jobs a bad CEO because he was run out of a (then-failing) Apple? The point I'm trying to make here is that I don't think there's any evidence that CEOs at most big companies are "adding value" on the scale required to make your argument work - that CEOs deserve their extremely high pay because they provide extremely high value. (Do CEOs in the United Kingdom, Japan, or Germany provide substantially less value?). I think it seems much more reasonable that large company performance has to do with a huge number of factors, of which CEO performance is but a small one, and that CEO pay has more to do with the tax/regulatory regime as well as political and cultural attitudes. > It is highly relevant. It's why US manufacturing collapsed, because China does it cheaper and better. The average Joe now has to compete with an increasingly global workforce who have a lower cost of living and no minimum wage laws. It's a little bit relevant. The average Joe now has to compete with an increasingly global workforce, but that may actually increase the average typical salary of domestic workers as much as decrease it, because jobs that can be done more cheaply are not done in the United States. > This is a great point but I will take issue with your claim that it has "nothing" to do with performance. Sorry, "nothing" was a little hyperbolic. > I believe I addressed that in my initial post. If they're making money not due to legitimate value add, then no I do not think they're entitled to keep their wealth. Whether that's via rent seeking, pollution, slave labor. I'm glad we agree then inequality is political and not some emergent economic property :). You simply happen to buy into the current political justification for inequality ("people who add more value earn more money") but not myriad past ones ("the nobility and the clergy provide important functions to a harmonious society" or "property rights are inviolable").