There has been some recent dispute about executive salaries, and why the top end of town apparently deserve to earn mega bucks whilst the great majority struggle along on minimum or average wage.
The dispute has so far seemed to come down to the dollar value, in the sense that we have been acclimatised to believe that our contributions to our society are not sufficiently worthy unless and until we are making money. My premise is that the only jobs which allow us entry to the higher echelons are those that have a profit motive.
Surely we have it wrong... Why do we accept that at CEO should earn a huge salary and at the same time accept that a teacher should earn only a small proportion of that. Surely the education of the next generation is something we should value more highly than the garnering of more wealth.
What about a nurse, a nursing home worker or even a doctor - we're all going to get old and/or sick one day - so why do we seemingly accept that the value that those workers could give to our lives, or our wellbeing, is worth less than those higher up the capitalist ladder?
How did we get it so mixed up? How did we actually come to believe that our CEOs were worth more to our society than our teachers, our nurses or anybody that actually makes a difference in our lives? Because apparently we did make that decision, or why else would we so readily accept that these huge executive salaries are justifiable.
The central draw of capitalism is the idea that we all have the chance to succeed, that one day, if we work long and hard enough, if we really try, we too might climb higher up the ladder. That might be true, but one of the only ways to the top is to be engaged in a profession which has money at its core. Are we really chasing the right dream?
The system, as it currently stands, assumes some heirachy of value, of worth. It does so in two ways:
- Within companies and businesses: so that those higher up the ladder are paid more, for their experience and skill (i.e. for their ability to make money, or manage others to make money)*; and
- Across society as a whole: by categorising some jobs as having a higher value (salary).
Why don't we value all contributions to our society? Why do we accept that some of us who choose to contribute to society outside the quest for profit are worth less to our fellow humans than someone who exploits us for profit? Why aren't we questioning what is really of value to us as a community? Why do we blindly accept that the pursuit of profit is more valuable to us as a society than the people who contribute to our wellbeing?
I'm starting to sound like a socialist - but that's not what I'm advocating. I am simply wondering why we blindly accept the status quo, why we don't ask why it is the way it is, why we don't value all contributions which allow our society to function, why we don't question that profit is the driving force in our society?
* Relative value within capitalist organisations is not addressed in this post, which instead focuses on relative value across our society.
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