The Economist describes the referendum in Switzerland, and refers to it as populist resentment. Some of the commentators go further and call it communism. Its hard to imagine that giving shareholders more control over executive compensation can be called populism or communism. The shareholders are supposed to own the company. They want to do what the Boards, that are theoretically elected by the shareholders, refuse to do. Shareholder capitalism has not been able to keep Boards from doing the bidding of the CEO because money managers hold most of the shares. They have not been interested in containing executive compensation because they have conflicts of interest. For example, many mutual funds are in the business of providing services to the firms whose stock they own.
The Economist has been a defender of exorbitant executive compensation. They do not question the classical assumption that compensation is determined by the marginal productivity of labor. Executive compensation reflects the productivity of the CEO. Its not really possible to measure the productivity of the CEO, but its hard to believe that CEO's today are 10 times more productive than the CEO's of major corporations a few decades ago. CEO used to earn around 40 times the salary of their average employee. They earn around 400 times the average salary today. The system has been rigged in their favor by compliant Boards. Its like having one's family determine one's compensation.
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