One thing I would like to figure out is whether this can be explained by businesses restructuring so that some of the rich people who used to be owners getting dividends are now company executives getting salaries—but the salaries are still set mostly by themselves to benefit themselves, out of proportion to the value of their work to the company. Directors or board members often also get salaries, again for very little work in most cases.
These are things that might be colloquially called ‘capital’. Jeff Bezos has a total compensation of 1.6 million; that is indeed a tiny part of his net worth, but I still think of it as “Jeff Bezos is a capitalist who is making money from the successful business he owns”, not as “Jeff Bezos is being paid for his talents as a CEO”. I don’t care about the distinction from the income he gets from Amazon dividends, shares, or his salary as a CEO. But then I’m not an economist; perhaps these are really significant differences that I should care about.
Thanks, that’s informative.
One thing I would like to figure out is whether this can be explained by businesses restructuring so that some of the rich people who used to be owners getting dividends are now company executives getting salaries—but the salaries are still set mostly by themselves to benefit themselves, out of proportion to the value of their work to the company. Directors or board members often also get salaries, again for very little work in most cases.
These are things that might be colloquially called ‘capital’. Jeff Bezos has a total compensation of 1.6 million; that is indeed a tiny part of his net worth, but I still think of it as “Jeff Bezos is a capitalist who is making money from the successful business he owns”, not as “Jeff Bezos is being paid for his talents as a CEO”. I don’t care about the distinction from the income he gets from Amazon dividends, shares, or his salary as a CEO. But then I’m not an economist; perhaps these are really significant differences that I should care about.