Um, ok, but what exactly does that mean? Corporations are owned by shareholders, in theory the average Joe can be a shareholder. The shareholders vote in a board of directors. They have power over basically everything. Like, how much do top execs get relative to the average worker.
Shareholders increase their wealth by 2 ways: dividends, or, selling the stock if its price goes up. Actual wealth is not increased by the stock price going up, that increases market cap, but that's just a fictitious number that says, if all stock were sold at the current price, it would yield x dollars. But it's not real money. If you buy stock at 11 and it goes to 15, you don't gain any actual dollars unless you sell it.
So why would shareholders want to pay out big bonuses and ridiculous top salaries, when my gut says there are very few people in the world who are the -only- ones who can do a good job making top level decisions for a company? It seems like shareholders would want to pay out the money, when available, in dividends, or re-invest in new plant, equipment, etc, or higher wages, and so on. Why don't they do that? I can only surmise that it's because the directors/top execs hold enough stock they can do these things. That's personal greed. Corporations are people.
I'm not an expert in this stuff but it sure seems like something is rotten in Denmark.
Probably a stupid idea, but what if a company paid decent wages for workers - and decent wages for talented managers, sure - and also paid in stock. Not options, but actual stock. Yes it dilutes the value of existing stock, but, then you have a situation where workers own part of the company, and logic says, they are going to try to do a good job on, say, assembly, because fewer defects means more sales and better profits, which impacts their dividends. Plus, they can sell the stock, or hold it for long term, and if it goes up in value so much the better for them.
Don't think I'm advocating for communism or nationalization of anything crazy nuts. It just seems like wealth increases for those already wealthy, and that money comes from somewhere, and that somewhere is from the people who already don't have enough to buy basic stuff people need to live.
Done rant for now.