In 2003, the average compensation of CEOs of largest U.S. companies is $8 million which is 301 times as much as factory workers. (Moriarty 257) This is one of the universal issues that whether high CEO compensations are giving rising economic inequalities draws growing concern. My argument is that high CEO compensations given rising economic inequalities are unjustified because high CEO pays are unfair per se and the non-comparative inequality that workers get should be solved (they worth more for their work). I am going to use Moriarty’s arguments to prove why high CEO compensations are unjustified per se through the three flawed views (agreement, desert, utility). In “agreement view”, if a CEO and an owner have arm’s length negotiation
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This is what the priority view claims. The example Parfit gives to support this view is to imagine you feel uncomfortable standing at the higher altitude of a mountain while others who are at lower altitude are feeling better. Even if the people at the lower altitude disappear, you are still uncomfortable. Another case Parfit uses is whether the parents should move to city for the sick child or move to the suburb for the healthy child. If someone claims that sick child’s situation is more urgent, then send the children to the city for the decrease in the inequality, but there is no doubt that it would be still urgent to send the sick child to the city even if there is no healthy child as comparison. In this view, benefits weighting more to the worse off than the better off is not due to the reduction of the inequality. The outcome, in fact, involves only one person instead of emphasizing the relativities. This view also avoids the levelling down objection that other views have. So if we use the way of levelling down to reduce inequality, such as natural disaster making people equally badly off. This removal of inequality doesn’t offer a good news because the badness still exists. Even so, it will not contradict the priority view because inequality is not the key factor of this view. (Parfit
This is what the priority view claims. The example Parfit gives to support this view is to imagine you feel uncomfortable standing at the higher altitude of a mountain while others who are at lower altitude are feeling better. Even if the people at the lower altitude disappear, you are still uncomfortable. Another case Parfit uses is whether the parents should move to city for the sick child or move to the suburb for the healthy child. If someone claims that sick child’s situation is more urgent, then send the children to the city for the decrease in the inequality, but there is no doubt that it would be still urgent to send the sick child to the city even if there is no healthy child as comparison. In this view, benefits weighting more to the worse off than the better off is not due to the reduction of the inequality. The outcome, in fact, involves only one person instead of emphasizing the relativities. This view also avoids the levelling down objection that other views have. So if we use the way of levelling down to reduce inequality, such as natural disaster making people equally badly off. This removal of inequality doesn’t offer a good news because the badness still exists. Even so, it will not contradict the priority view because inequality is not the key factor of this view. (Parfit