4 ms·
I always wondered if and how things would be different if we had regulations like: "the highest paid job can't be more than 10 times the lowest one, including a
by squarefoot 2y ago
I always wondered if and how things would be different if we had regulations like: "the highest paid job can't be more than 10 times the lowest one, including all benefits", or like "where there is a well defined hierarchy, each upper level can't be paid more than +50% than the one that immediately follows", so that giving a raise to high rank executives would also propagate to other workers thus reducing those huge discrepancies.
- the_snooze 2y agoI think you'd just end up with more tenuous employment situations under that setup. If I'm an owner or an executive, that would discourage hiring low-level staff as full-time regular employees. Better to make them part-timers or independent contractors or deal with a staffing firm to skirt the responsibility of paying employees proportional to my pay.
- ryandrake 2y agoWhen we're proposing a rule, and someone points out that it won't work because of X, Y, or Z, the solution is to integrate X, Y, and Z into the rule--not give up and say "oh, companies are very clever and they will get around whatever you write!" So, instead, add that to OP's proposal: "the highest paid job can't be more than 10 times the lowest one, including all benefits, and including all part time work, annualized, and including temp workers and all hired contractors, and all sub-contractors."
- silverquiet 2y agoIt's a rather interesting form of learned helplessness isn't it (and one suspects not really an unwitting one)?
- ThrowawayR2 2y agoUnless you include the rule "nobody can ever leave your jurisdiction", Iron Curtain style, all you'll see is the entrepreneurial equivalent of brain drain to other jurisdictions that don't have such rules. Almost by definition, people with entrepreneurial ambitions are those willing to take calculated risks like relocating. This is kind of what's happening to the EU. And, to be crystal clear, I'm not delighted by high CEO pay but the cures proposed always seem worse than the disease. If you want to eat the rich, do it in a way that makes them willing to hop onto the plate and offer you a napkin.
- abenga 2y agoLet them go. You just have to prevent them from selling to in your jurisdiction in that case. There is no reason they should be allowed to extract value from your population without abiding by the social contract.
- ThrowawayR2 2y agoThe émigré entrepreneurs have no reason to care because they're still financially better off than the would have been staying. Aside from that, that only works if the polity for that jurisdiction is equal or ahead in in technology. Cutting yourself off from de facto standard or superior tech is going to result in a massive drag on the economy for quite some time before local equivalents mature enough to compensate. Certainly the EU wouldn't survive such a shock; their finances are precarious enough already.
- soco 2y agoThe OP point still stands: if we only complain "nah this doesn't work because..." and do nothing to address that "because", shit will definitely hit the fan later when the new royalty will get again beheaded in the public place, plus heaps of unrest and bad stuff we could have maybe avoided if we just addressed that "because" instead of sitting on our rears moaning.
- ThrowawayR2 2y agoSure, that's true but the only proposals that seem to get posted on HN are clearly unworkable even under casual scrutiny. Doing something that's worse than doing nothing just for the sake of doing something is silly. When are serious proposals that withstand analysis going to be advocated?
- soco 2y agoDoes it matter? You should remember it's HN not some parliamentary commission, so both unworkable and genial proposals matter exactly zero.