Fairness

I have always been of the opinion that fair or good are most probably concepts indifferent to the universe. I am also starting to think they are indifferent to most human affairs.

The discussion started with Tom and goes back some time. I feel I have the same opponent with different faces whenever I talk with social democrats. He said that the income of managers and CEOs had increased in the last decades outrageously whereas the salaries had been growing in single digits. His conclusion was that there was no limit for the top men’s wealth and they would end up destroying the whole system with their greed.

It reminded me of Greg’s opinion. Plainly explained he said that the huge amounts that wealthy people earned were simply unfair as long as other people were in need. It also harked back to my eldest brother who sustained that the debt could be payed off just by fighting fraud.

I saw the left especially strong when the topic came to the rich. Many things could be argued about, but riches was a sin they were not ready to tolerate.

I found Tom’s opinion arguable. Thinking that the Western world was going into decline just because it would not be able to pay its big fish was an extrapolation of what was going on with the public sector. Civil servants were untouchable, managers were not.

From an economic point of view a company should invest its profits as well as it could, whether it was research, technology, or managers, or whichever other asset. Tom wanted to set limits to the biggest wages. Probably Greg would have applauded, why should one person in the same company earn more than, say, one hundred times the lowest salary?

The answer looked simple to me. Why should not the company set the same limit to technology? We might as well limit the amount that a company spends in computers. But it is not going to help.

Sad as it may look, companies need the best people for certain tasks and being sparing in that area can make the company in the long term lose a lot more than it would save. And however unfair it may seem, changing the company’s top staff for an inefficient one will not improve the numbers on the spread sheets.