Or we could just look at raising the floor and figure out what’s causing concentrations at the ceiling. You know, pragmatism.
Raising the floor means providing our citizens with more institutionalized basic guarantees that allow them to pursue success from a higher starting point than abject poverty and homelessness. This would, naturally, give more leverage to the working class in their wage demands and control over their destinies, which is why it will never happen as long as we allow corporate lobbying and campaign contributions to politicians.
It may come as a shock, but those who are most harmed by the extremes of pay inequity are shareholders. CEOs and other top corporate managers have hijacked the boards of many larger corporations, especially those in the financial sector, and now simply rubber stamp pay and bonus increases for company management, knowing that this will be reciprocated when their demands are voted upon.
The outlandish salaries and stock option/bonus offerings paid out to top managers often bankrupt the companies and steal returns on investment that should be distributed to shareholders. Hostess was one great example of this as even employee retirement funds were redirected to pay and bonuses for managers.
When the demise of the much-loved Twinkie gained the actions some level of public attention, the "goto" response was to blame the employees' wage demands and their union for the company's downfall. One of the most repeated mantras in public discussion of the failure was the "socialist" nature of labor unions, which distracted much of the criticism that such a blatantly destructive example of "hedge fund" type business models poses.
The government could, if it truly were an agent for the people and functioned as a fiduciary in their best interests, simply make it illegal for corporate management to sit on the board of any corporation, including hedge funds. This would return oversight of our corporate monsters to shareholders and allow them to be as responsive to social justice as their consciences would dictate.
