Thoughts on status, the elite, and other possibly unconnected variables.
Some of my best (or at least most interesting) ideas come while I'm waking up. A couple of days ago I made a rather rambling comment about the possible cause of a whole lot of isms being a need for status rather than inherent bigotry. Evidently that chain of thought has kept on linking in the background ever since.
Consider the lordly CEO. It used to be, long ago, that having the top job at a company, especially in a private firm, meant that you were involved with, and responsible for, the workings of the company. Your status meant that you could (at least supposedly) require deference, if not obedience, from the people under you. As salary reflected status, that meant you legitimately made more than the people working under you. Depending on how many layers there were, that could mean anywhere from 10 to 30 times the pay of your average worker. That's the perception of a corporation that I grew up with, some fifty or so years ago.
Today, though, having the top job at a company, especially a large company, whether public or private, means something very different. It means that you're the person in charge of negotiating with the bankers who fund you, the heads of other competing companies, and possibly the governments where your company has operations. Totally aside from greed, for the moment, that means that somehow you have to have, or be given, status that insures you will be listened to during negotiations.
At this point, salary is completely divorced from anything that an employee is paid. It is now based on the process of bringing the prime negotiators to some sort of equity with not only heads of state, but with people sitting at the top of the socioeconomic class. In other words, being able to deal with the 1% on an equals basis. Or, to put it another way, with the people who couldn't be bothered to talk to you if you didn't have enough power to at least irritate them. And it helps if you have the social status and background to know what buttons to push, and where they're likely to be located.
So the situation we have is corporations, in what they perceive as their best interest, not only enabling the growth of economic inequity, but actively promoting it, in the process of trying to create better effective status for their own negotiators. The primary cost of doing business is no longer the cost of raw material, or wages, or transportation, or research, but the expense of maintaining a sufficiently high status presence among the globally powerful. And at the moment, all the other expenses are being cut in favor of the single area which they see the as most critical as far as decisions that will impact their survival.
Okay. This is one particular mechanism taken out to its most outrageous extent. It is certainly not the only major factor playing out today, but I suggest that it may have a substantial effect on the current mess. One of the problems with it is that it's much too sympathetic to the problems of corporations (Sniff. Right, like they need sympathy.) for many people to be willing to agree with.
But, if it is a factor, then I think perhaps that it shows one of the main places the disconnect in thinking between individual and corporate welfare occurs, and may suggest possibilities for attacking the problem from the side of the individual.