Here is an interesting point of view on the workings of (terminal) capitalism. Some years ago, I remember The Dutch government introducing legislation of limiting the maximum salary to six times the average salary. No one could earn more than six time the average income. It was considered the right move to introduce fiscal equality amongst the working Dutch.
I don’t know what happened to this move but I do know that Holland in the seventies and eighties went through enormous change in bringing about a more just society. On many levels this has worked very well. Especially on social levels such as in general health, aged care, pensions, lowering rates of crime.
Holland is now seeking to pass laws whereby the use of petrol and diesel cars will be discontinued in the near future and changed into electric driven cars. Prison populations are dwindling and in New York City you buy tulips in the afternoon that were picked in Holland that same morning. It seems, the Dutch have many admirable solutions to modern problems.
Amazingly, Holland is also the second largest producer and exporter of agricultural products in the world despite it also being one of the smallest and most densely populated country. How is this possible?
https://www.hollandtradeandinvest.com/key-sectors/agriculture-and-food
Oosterman Treats Blog 
August 31, 2016 at 6:24 am |
To introduce fiscal equality amongst the working was the theme at the recent Q and A discussion. People want six times the average wage to be the limit of the highest income and they think it is twelve times at the moment. But it is actually 350 times.
The Dutch are very progressive.
LikeLiked by 2 people
August 31, 2016 at 9:40 am |
Yes, it is obscene for a CEO to be paid millions, plus stock, plus superannuation, when his (well, they are usually male) subordinates are being castigated for taking too long in the toilet because they are wiping their bums on the cheapest toilet paper in history.
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 31, 2016 at 11:27 am
The ten top Fund Managers in the world (US) own more than entire countries. A seventy percent tax on their wealth means nothing to them. They would still make another billion next year. Yet to the millions of low earners in America and Australia it would give good health, a good education and a better life.
The average earnings and income in the US for the workers have been stagnant for the last twenty years, yet the wealth of the rich has grown to staggering and obscene heights.
The idea that higher tax would mean the end of ‘Wealth Creation’ is a furphy put about by unimaginative and lame governments. ( as pointed out by the Q&A video’s professor.)
LikeLiked by 2 people
August 31, 2016 at 11:34 am
Yes, Big M.
Not only is the toilet paper cheap and nasty. For the poor, who rely on super market toilet paper, the rolls have become narrower and more fragile. Now comes the final insult with bum wiping, with all the risky digital manoeuvring this simple act entails.
The rich get you even when sitting on the toilet.
LikeLike
August 31, 2016 at 11:50 am
Naturally one strives to avoid passing motions at work, instead sticking to the job at hand. Of course, one can be caught short, but is reminded by the coarseness of the paper in the stall to put of such actions until firmly seated in a throne of one’s own.
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 31, 2016 at 12:31 pm
Yes, Big M. There is nothing like the satisfaction and security of a homely toilet.
Some people cover the seat with a doily as if to hide the actions of what humans do there. A bit like a top hat to cover up baldness or a fig leaf over the statue of Michael Angelo’s King David.
Actually, the fig leaf was used on a plaster copy of this sculpture during the reign of Queen Victoria. It was claimed her sensibilities might be so delicate there was a fear she could faint viewing the genitalia of a nude man. This is why smelling salts were very popular during that period in the UK. Many a woman would be brought back by smelling salts when confronted with the reality of what a marriage would entail…
Of course, the men would escape to the club and read the paper or shout ‘order, order…
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 31, 2016 at 11:19 am |
I am sure the Dutch complain as much as we but at least they don’t suffer from this dreadful mantra of, ‘if it isn’t broke don’t change it.’
They do break it continually, and try and make it better.
LikeLike
August 31, 2016 at 8:18 pm |
I think that’s a brilliant idea – setting a maximum salary. There are some here trying to introduce a maximum salary to the NZ Greens economic policy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
August 31, 2016 at 10:11 pm |
A maximum salary would be a logical way to remove the ever increasing inequality between the haves and have nots. Australia could have been the Norway of the Pacific instead it seems to go the Argentinian way. Isn’t it strange that Australia had it all, yet sold resources to the world and the riches went to a few bloated billionaires. We went to the police yesterday. Someone had stolen all our potted plants. The police station from 1920s. Totally neglected and hardly poorly functional, paint flaking; something out of ‘The Bill.’ The same with the local high-schools, the hospital, railway Station.
“Norway built the biggest sovereign wealth fund in the world by investing a share of revenue from its offshore oilfields. Australia should have followed its example with the money from the mining boom, writes Paul Cleary.
Had a little smart thinking been applied, Australia’s biggest and longest ride on the resources rollercoaster since the 1850s gold rush could have been very beneficial indeed.
It is about time that we recognised this reality by putting in place a framework to ensure future generations will benefit from the extraction of our finite mineral resources.
If federal and state governments had put a share of their windfall revenue into a foreign currency future fund, thereby taking advantage of record-high mineral prices and the soaring Australian dollar, they would have amassed a tidy fortune.
Today, when converted back into local currency, this stockpile of wealth would be worth much more than the capital outlaid, given that the Australian dollar has naturally fallen in step with sliding mineral prices. These savings could have been used to boost the economy after the mineral boom, obviating the need for governments, and the nation, to go further into debt.
Instead, hundreds of billions of dollars in windfall government revenue have been spectacularly squandered. Now, at the end of this feast-to-famine feeding frenzy, there’s no prospect of the federal government paying down its $325 billion net debt, which is likely to continue rising for the rest of the decade. Australia owes the world more than $1 trillion in net terms, two and a half times the amount owed at the start of the boom.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 31, 2016 at 11:18 pm |
We all seem to owe more than any of us could ever pay down. Now we have a ballplayer who is being paid 11 million dollars who refuses to stand for the National Anthem. Everybody has an axe to grind.
LikeLiked by 1 person
September 1, 2016 at 9:16 am |
At my age I leave the axes to others to grind but still like to see the rich less rich and the poor less poor.
We had our cyclamen stolen. They were so beautiful and a joy to behold just outside our windows. Who would steal cyclamen? What’s going on?
LikeLiked by 1 person
September 1, 2016 at 6:34 am |
Admirable, excellent, why aren’t we all following suit. I suppose that the answer is that most countries have enough very, very wealthy people who can influence/buy politics to work in their favour. Grrr.
LikeLiked by 1 person
September 1, 2016 at 9:20 am |
Yes, that’s right. Australia has a Prime Minister who is extremely wealthy with his companies registered on the Cayman Islands. Yet he wants to cut back entitlements to the pensioners, cut education and health at the same time giving generous tax concessions to corporations. GRRR me too.
Yesterday, we went outside in the morning and things looked different. All our beautiful cyclamen in glorious pots and ceramic dishes were stolen.
We were stunned and upset. A violation.
LikeLike
September 1, 2016 at 9:35 am
Oh Gerard, that’s so dispiriting. So weird too, to steal something for its beauty, or I suppose they are selling them on. Grrr again.
LikeLike
September 1, 2016 at 3:49 pm |
I can’t believe your cyclamen were stolen. Who would do a thing like that!
As for your main point, the multiple idea is a good one. I am getting tired of hering people refer to how much CEOs ‘earn’. The fact they receive it doesn’t mean they have earned it.
As for performance bonuses, Warren Buffet once described how this worked by comparison. The CEO fires an arrow into the distance, walks up to it and, regardless of where it has landed, paints a circle round it and says ‘See, I have hit the target!’
LikeLike
September 2, 2016 at 12:03 am |
Great piece! A lot of discussion centers on the notion of a minimum wage, but I find the idea of a maximum wage very interesting! This would be an excellent start to eradicating the wage gap.
A recent post of mine critiques capitalism as it relates to the class action suit against Chipotle – you may find it of interest: https://zoneofnonbeing.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/chipotle-capitalism-in-a-nutshell/
LikeLike