Of ethics and salary

A friend of mine … (digression: I love that lead-in, I can assert that I had this conversation with a friend of mine in real life, and you’ll never know, unless he comments. The friend with whom I had this conversation does, at times, read this blog) …

Anyway …

A friend of mine and I were discussing Mike Huckabee the other day, and he said that one of his concerns was that Mike Huckabee said some negative things about  CEO salaries.

Yes, he did:

Mr. Huckabee: The real fact is, unions are going to take a more prominent role in the future for one simple reason: A lot of American workers are finding that their wages continue to get strapped lower and lower while CEO salaries are higher and higher.
And the reality is that when you have the average CEO salary 500 times the average worker, and you have the hedge fund manager making 2,200 times that of the average worker, you’re going to create a level of discontent that’s going to create a huge appetite for unions.
So unions are the natural result of workers finally saying, “Look, I can’t go from a $70,000 year job to a $15,000 a year job and feed my family of four.” That’s when unions are going to come back in roaring form.

This isn’t socialism, people. This is called “reality.” Mike Huckabee is looking at the situation in the economy, and he’s encouraging us to look at it. People are going to balk at this kind of salary disparity, and there are going to be repercussions — a resurgence of union power may well be exactly what happens.

Let’s look at the ethics for a moment. Many executives are woefully incompetent, they lead their companies into disaster, they destroy stock values, and yet they get millions of dollars in severance packages. Purportedly, this is in order to attract top talent. I’m okay with paying the best and most successful people  a lot of money. But there should probably be some kind of consideration for whether the executive accomplished anything positive.

What is being missed is that Mike Huckabee isn’t just about legal positions and such. He’s also a social critic. There might be something wrong with a system that pays even failed executives millions of dollars while honest and hard-working people have a hard time supporting their families. I would argue that there is something wrong with a system that pays grown men millions of dollars per year to play games and get arrested for a couple months each year.

That doesn’t mean we’re talking about legislated salary ceilings or any such thing … just raising a moral issue. One worth considering.

Moreover, Mike Huckabee is right — unions can thrive given these kinds of circumstances. If you’re getting caught up in the fact that he’s criticizing CEO salaries, and fail to notice his point, then you should reread it. He’s looking at a situation and discussing it rationally, ethically, and honestly, as well as politically.

That means, Mike Huckabee is discussing it intelligently. He’s not just grand-standing.