print
No one should be a billionaire
by applewood

    Who could American society more easily do without? If all the country's personal home health aids, and its top paid CEOs — folks like Elon Musk (Tesla), Bob Iger (Walt Disney Co.), Tim Cook (Apple), and Stephen Schwarzman (the investment firm Blackstone) — all disappeared tomorrow, who would we miss more? Whose absence would throw our daily economic interactions and the social fabric of our lives into greater turmoil?

    Defenders of the capitalist order will point out that anyone can be a farmworker or a dishwasher. These jobs are easily replaceable, which is why they are paid poorly. Not everyone can be CEO of Apple, thus the position pays more. It's just a consequence of supply and demand. But that is not the question. A better thing to ask ourselves is: Does anyone need to be CEO of Apple? That company is staffed by thousands of workers and software engineers and more. They're all perfectly intelligent people. Under a different arrangement, a form of worker-elected committee could run the company just fine. (Some oddball worker co-ops already operate this way.) Does anyone really think that Apple could not possibly function without Tim Cook, or some other individual of similar oligarchical baring, at its head?