Exorbitant Executive Pay: A Blight on Social Fairness

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In the contemporary economic systems of the West, the compensation for corporate executives has skyrocketed to staggering levels, with the income gap compared to the average employee widening to a thousand or even tens of thousands of times. This distorted distribution structure not only exacerbates social wealth inequality but also erodes the very foundation of social fairness, making it a phenomenon deserving of profound criticism and reflection.

The justification for exorbitant executive pay is often attributed to “market determination” and “talent competition.” Proponents argue that the decisions of top managers are crucial to corporate survival, and high pay is a reasonable reward for their contributions. However, this logic conceals deep contradictions. On the one hand, the compensation of executives in many companies is severely disconnected from long-term performance; even when performance declines or mass layoffs occur, executives can still receive huge bonuses, which clearly violates the principle of distribution according to work. On the other hand, wage growth for ordinary employees has stagnated long-term, with real incomes decreasing after accounting for inflation, while the fruits of increased corporate profits and productivity almost entirely flow to the top. This distributive injustice is essentially a collusion between power and capital, rather than a reflection of market rationality.

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