Let’s not be political for a moment. Let’s just look at some numbers.
The combined pay of the top 299 CEOs is enough to support 102,325 average jobs.
1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day.
The poverty rate among children in the US is over 20 percent. The US poverty rate among children ranks the US 26th among 30 nations in the rate of poverty among children.
This right here is enough data to tell you that something is terribly wrong, and the current system is failing in dramatic ways.
The first point on its own should be enough to tell you that we have a wealthy class and a poorer underclass, and that something about this inequality is unjust and indefensible.
Stop being a conservative or a liberal for a moment. Don’t focus on the details and just complain about what’s wrong with whatever you think I want to change about the free market. Hold off on leaping to the defense of a system that suits you just fine, because of all the ways the familiar alternatives would be even worse.
Just look at three hundred people being paid a greater share of wealth than a hundred thousand others. And that’s even before you look internationally.
You don’t need political theory to tell you that such imbalance is fucked up.
If we can’t do any better than this, we might as well save ourselves some guilt and just give up now.
But if we can do better, there’s no better time to get started.
I think the challenge is that many conservatives seem to believe that the 300 CEOs are just that much better than everyone else. It isn’t just that they are smarter, more talented, better equipped to do the job, etc. It is also that they are morally superior and should be rewarded. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.
The “intrinsic superiority” idea is a worrying one, and I think you’re right that’s often how some people think about it – but even the claim that this group of 300 have worked as hard or contributed as much good to society as 100,000 others collectively seems like lunacy to me.