Encouraging Corporate Equality

THE LIMITED LIABILITY CORPORATION, the magical mystical incarnation of a business as a legal individual, is among mankind's greatest inventions, along with compound interest, and a few other things. Since the day of their invention, corporations have tended to vest great power and wealth in the corporate CEO, without any pressing reason, other than sheer force of habit, for doing so. What could be more suitable to democratic, elegalitarian disposition of power and money, than a publicly owned stock issuing corporation? Where anyone can own a piece of the business, and many workers share the burden of the success of the incorporated body. The argument that the CEO has greater rsponsibilities which should be compensated accordingly certainly has merit, but to what degree? Do corporate CEOs around the world really merit a salary five hundred times greater than the entry level workers? This question is being asked more often around the world, particularly in progressive minded Europe. In Switzerland the electorate voted on whether to limit CEO pay to a mere tweleve times that of lowest level corporate employeses, and the issue was defeated, by sixty five to thrity five percent, a real landslide. However, the mere fact that this question was even on the ballot at all in corporation friendly Switzerland is a strong indication that this issue has legs, as they say. Other European countries are considering similar proposals, and some will probably pass them. Why not let socialism save corporate capitalism from its tendency to comsume itself? Or better yet, why not educate and empower the shareholders around the world to take control of their companies and their CEOs, and manage their businesses for the benefit of everyone, rather than a chosen few? The only problem here, as you might suppose, is that most corporate stock in the world is owned by a very small number of extremely wealthy people, who aren't about to give any real power to small investors. So the people at large must act.