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Top mediocrity at the New York Times David Brooks has perpetrated another fatuous column, this one saying vast inequality of wealth is because the top people create eleventy billion times as much value as the ants at the bottom. Paul Krugman raises an eyebrow.
But don’t go thinking that’s just because the plutocrat class rewards itself – no no – it’s totally merit. A plutocrat screwup is emphasis on the plutocrat dammit.
Krugman: “Do we really thing CEOs have gotten hugely better since the 1960s”
Me: Yes. They have gotten hugely better at stealing from the poor, and getting away with it.
Haha, “top mediocrity”, how apt. Brooks is such an ignoramus. Most of the wealth in the country is generated by rich people just letting money develop capital gains, without lifting a finger. It has nothing to do with “productivity”, and Brooks knows that. If you have ten million dollars sitting in securities that average 20% gains in a year (which is not at all uncommon in this long-running, crazy bull market), then you end up with two million more at the end of the year after having done *nothing*. And ten million dollars is chump change to the really wealthy people in this country.
(Excuse me while I hop into my Tardis and jump back to the 1970s…)
1970s Me: CEOs are making 30 times more than workers.
1970s Capitalist: That’s perfectly justifiable because they’re creating jobs. CEOs deserve to make more than workers.
1970s Me: OK, I can accept that they deserve more, but how much more?
1970s Capitalist: I’d say 30 times sounds about right.
1970s Me: What if CEOs were making 150 times what workers were making? Would that be fair?
1970s Capitalist: Of course not. 150 times is way too much. But that would never happen anyway…
(Flash forward to the 1990s)
1990s Me: CEOs are making 150 times more than workers.
1990s Capitalist: That’s perfectly justifiable because they’re creating jobs. CEOs deserve to make more than workers.
1990s Me: OK, I can accept that they deserve more, but how much more?
1990s Capitalist: I’d say 150 times sounds about right.
1990s Me: What if CEOs were making 300 times what workers were making? Would that be fair?
1990s Capitalist: Of course not. 300 times is way too much. But that would never happen anyway…
(Flash forward to the 2010s)
2010s Me: CEOs are making 300 times more than workers.
2010s Capitalist: That’s perfectly justifiable because they’re creating jobs. CEOs deserve to make more than workers.
2010s Me: OK, I can accept that they deserve more, but how much more?
2010s Capitalist: I’d say 300 times sounds about right.
2010s Me: What if CEOs were making 1,500 times what workers were making? Would that be fair?
2010s Capitalist: Of course not. 1,500 times is way too much. But that would never happen anyway…
(Flash forward to the 2030s)
And on and on it goes…
I find it interesting to compare this to athlete salaries, where a very common reaction is “who the hell does this guy think he, getting $10 million to play a child’s game?” Even though a top professional athlete has proven, though objective measurable accomplishments and contests that he or she is one of the best in the world at that profession, and contributes to a product that millions of people watch and enjoy and spend money on. They also have short careers and risk injury and long-term medical consequences. Their performance is scrutinized and frequently criticized, and the media and public are quick to call a player “lazy” based on little more than speculation.
But CEOs, whose skills are less obviously measurable, and whose pay is often only loosely linked to their abilities, can receive much more in compensation, and enjoy long careers with no risk of injury, and the reaction is a shrug and “hey, that’s capitalism for ya.” When their performance gets media attention, it’s usually in the form of puff-pieces in business magazines, and their absurd claims of working 16+ hours a day are taken at face value (as if that would even be a good and healthy thing for a human being to do anyway).
It’s also the case though that there’s a gulf between the top athletes and all the other athletes, with only the tiniest of differences in performance to justify the gulf. It’s a winner-take-all market. Hollywood works the same way.
Exactly this. Every CEO I’ve personally known/worked-for has been hired on the basis of their past successes with businesses. But the success of a business in my field (tech) often has very little to do with the leadership, and a whole lot more to do with the basic product being peddled. So the CEO is just riding a wave of success that likely would have happened without them, and receives unjustified acclaim for achieving something that wasn’t a result of their efforts. And yet CEO’s in the tech industry are among the most well compensated of all.
CEOs too are examples of the winner take all market, according to the book I linked.
David Brooks is a walking example of sheltered employment. Anyway the line that really pisses me off in his column is this:
That’s not Trump’s culture war, that’s Brooks’ culture war. That was Bobos in Paradise.
If you want to talk about theyism within the American context a large chunk of it is the myth of the coastal elites, and Brooks was one of the authors of that.
Trump took advantage of this bullshit that guys like Brooks sowed into the American consciousness with decades of propaganda, but it wasn’t his “theyism” – Trump is a consequence of that shit, not its originator by long chalk.
This is something that’s got to be remembered – Trump is not an aberration in American politics, he’s a consequence. Brooks cavalier attitude to basic honesty, as covered by Philadelphia Magazine in 2004, is exactly what led to Trump.
https://www.phillymag.com/news/2004/04/01/david-brooks-booboos-in-paradise/
A lot of the power behind Trump’s rhetoric is the same “don’t care about the details if the feeling is true” that infests Brooks’ work. He may not personally support Trump, but Trumpism owes one hell of a lot to the trailblazing of one David Brooks.
Artymorty, I once had a similar conversation with someone who clearly did not care, as long as the workers didn’t unionize and cause the price of their underwear to increase a few pennies at WalMart (never mind that WalMart could sell many items just as cheap while paying the workers a decent wage if they were willing to live on a few less billions). Then I mentioned teachers who were going out on strike because they had not received any raises (the Oklahoma strike a couple of years ago). Their answer: teachers know when they go into the field that they won’t be paid well, so they should suck up and shut up.
First, teachers are doing important work, unlike most CEOs, who claim to be doing the work of keeping the corporation running, but delegate most of it to underlings who could do it as well without them. Second, most teachers actually aren’t aware of that before they go into the field, especially in places like Oklahoma where the dominant narrative says they work few hours, long summers off, and astronomical pay. I teach people who are studying to be teachers; I’ve had several of them leave the field once they found out what the work was they would really be doing, how much they would really be paid, and that they would have to deal with all the people that think you are doing it wrong – which is everyone.
But CEOs will get a pass from most people, because we have bought into the narrative of necessity and hard work, and because we think some people deserve to be rich. Yeah. But not the people that do the actual work that makes those people rich – oh, no, they deserve nothing better than what they get.