According to a front page story in last Friday's (25 February 2005) edition of The Wall Street Journal, CEO bonuses at 100 major U. S. corporations rose 46.4% to a median of $1.14 million dollars, the largest gain in five years. The report is based on survey information compiled by Mercer Human Resource Consulting in New York City.
The same report noted that the median 2004 bonus amounted to 141% of executive annual salaries.
Interestingly, clerical and technical support staff earmed an average bonus of 5% of salary last year at companies granting bonuses across the board--this according to other surveys.
The gap between the nation's top income earners and its middle and bottom wage earners is increasing as never before in the last 100 years.
Our nation enjoys discussing values and ethics in the public square. Our houses of worship have been turned into classrooms for discussing the moral agenda of the nation. Millions of people of faith feel completely comfortable discussing a rather narrow range of ethical topics that include abortion and homosexuality.
I am wondering how many congregations this past week discussed the ethical ramifications of the accumulation of extreme wealth, a wealth that could not be generated without the efforts of ordinary, underpaid, laboring Americans.
Take a moment and read the amazing words of the brother of Jesus found at James 5:1-6. You may be surprised! His words relate to our current situation in the U. S. when it comes to labor, fair pay and justice.
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6 comments:
Larry, thank you for your thoughtful comments. I am enjoying reading your blog.
James 5:1-6 hits it right on the head. I am reminded of the famous quote of one of my heroes, William Jennings Bryan:
"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."
I look forward to seeing you March 10 at the Prayer Event.
Joe F. Monroy
Amen. The church has blinders up, it seems, in some areas of society. Thanks for your willingness to put it out there.
FYI, according to new HUD figures, "of the 2,658 metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, ninety percent experienced median income increases of (only)5% or less" when compared to 2000 Census data.
I wonder what these CEOs would say if their salaries had only experienced similar gains?
Larry,
One of the problems with any attempts to curtail the extreme inequalities of wealth in our society is that such attempts run counter to the very system that we depend on for our economic prosperity- capitalism.
There really is no way to redistribute wealth without harming the incentives that capitalism relies on to work. This means that we are forever stuck in a balancing act between growing the pie, but having unequal slices, and slicing up the pie more evenly, but watching the whole thing shrink. Witness the rise of the welfare state, which peaked in the past 30 years, and the current retreat of government-led social redistribution before the forces of neo-liberalism and the 'market imperative'.
The extreme inequality that is often assumed to be a aberration of capitalism, the system 'gone wrong'. It is actually an essential feature of capitalism, and the mechanisms which lead to such inequality are the same mechanisms that drive the growth, production, and investment that our economy relies on.
Ha, I don't really have any answers to this conundrum, at least not yet. But I think it does show that if we want to find a viable solution to the inequality that exists in the US (I am from Canada), then we will have to look outside of capitalism- we will have to think 'outside the box', to be cliched about it.
I love your blog. I agree with most of what you say, including what you say about the problems of current mainstream Christianity in the US. I am also a virulent atheist, and hope to one day eliminate religion. But I am inspired to find goodness and truly moral purpose in the heart of something that is the source of so much wickedness. It gives me hope for humanity.
Matt, thanks for such a thoughtful response! I agree with you. Actually, from 1930 until the Reagan revolution, we had found a pathway that achieved more fairness than previously with our capitalist system. While I agree with your overall assessment of the system, I do think we could do better even inside the capitalism we have (see my blog on the work of LBJ as it relates to poverty). Thanks for reading. Stay with me. I also understand your position on faith--unfortunately, you have many reasons not to believe, thanks to the actions of so many who do. Larry
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