Before I begin, I need to explain one thing. I was reading on another blog this week about us "Presbyterian (PCUSA) 'types,'" meaning they are soical liberals without preaching much of the gospel. I attend a PCUSA church but it is one of the more evangelical ones.
There seems to be today a huge disparity between the average American worker's income and the outrageous salaries and perks of many CEO's. The evangelical movement as a whole denounces and speaks out loudly about such [political] issues as abortion, homsexuality, etc.; but, when it comes to the poor or huge CEO salaries they are strangely silent.
We are talking about this in my Sunday School class.
Our teacher presented the following statistics to us last Sunday in class:
-In 1965 the average CEO salary was 20 times the average salary ($40,000/year) of the average American worker.
-In 1980 it was 40 times as much.
-In 1990 it was 96 times as much.
-In 1995 it was 160 times as much.
-And in 2000 it was 475 times as much as the average income, or 1223 times as much as the full-time lowest paid workers.
In other developed countries today it is about where it was with us before 1990.
In Japan it is 11 times as much as the average salary of that country.
In England, it is 42 times as much.
So the question that is looming before us is how much is too much.
Still, the Christians are silent.
So now, the secular business press and authors (i.e. Drucker and the Wall Street Journal), are saying that this is a very dangerous trend. They are telling us that the whole thing will implode if a boundary isn't established.
Still, the Chrisitans are silent.
The ceo's of Enron, World Com, and others; and the big accounting firms such as Arthur Anderson and are seen to be criminals.
Still the Christians are silent.
Why aren't Christian CEO's refusing to take all this money and then are written about--even if it is only in the Chrisitan press?
Why is it that former hippies and ultra-liberals Ben and Jerry (yes, the ice cream guys) have established a ratio of 7:1 instead of the Christians establishing this type of ratio in their businesses?
In the Ben and Jerry company's 7:1 ratio, the top paid full-time person can make no more than the bottom paid full-time person. The average CEO salary of most businesses is 1223 times the lowest paid person.
Even the ancients grappled with this. Plato felt it shoudl be 5:1.
Why aren't Christians grappling with this?
I personally don't think a ratio of 7:1 is feasible. But if we go back to even the 1980 level of 40:1 (average salary, not lowest paid) the CEO would be making $1,600,000 per year. Isn't over 1 1/2 million enough to live on? If not, then how about back to the 1980 level of 160 times the average which would put the salary of the CEO to $6,400,000. Surely almost 6 1/2 million would be enough to live on.
Our Sunday School class teacher has talked to some CEO's and one told him that it wasn't about money, it was about topping others--in other words--POWER.
Still the Christians are silent.
Steve Went Looking for Grace
1 day ago
10 comments:
Hello, this is Douglas from Belief Seeking Understanding.
There is a solution for this. It's called the market. Should Christians cry out about how much athletes make? Or entertainers? Or Vanna White? CEO's of companies are at least involved in producing goods and services. And who died and made Plato God, anyway? CEO's that don't produce earnings for shareholders usually don't stay CEO's very long.
I understand what you're saying, but I just don't think it's as unambiguously evil as your post would suggest. Stupid, maybe, but if it's evil, it's an evil that is endorsed by many parties
Carly Fiorina was given a $42 million severance from HP. That had to come out of the pockets of a lot of other HP people way down the line in terms of pensions, medical expenses, and the like.
If a company wants to pay the CEO a fortune, I say let 'em--but only if it does not come at the expense of the little guy in the company. That's a little bit different than what you are saying, Diane, but it's close.
I've seen too much of this kind of shenanigans pulled by companies where the departing CEO gets a massive golden parachute at the time when some people in the same company are seeing their medical benefits chopped. That's ALWAYS wrong.
There's a sense of entitlement in this country that bothers me. And it isn't just in the boardrooms. Even the poorest people I run into have the same feeling that someone owes them something. Our victim mentality creates this.
It's very simple why the Christians remain silent:
(1): The political party that supports these actions is the same political party the Christians preach from the pulpits on Sunday morning to be the saviors that will end abortion, provide school vouchers, etc. Therefore, to not look like a hyprocrite, the issue of the CEO golden parachutes are denied in the church while the other issues of abortion, euthanasia, school vouchers, etc. are addressed with God's Official Opinion signed 'Thus saith the Lord'
(2): Who sits on the deacon and elder boards of many of the larger churches in America, the same CEO's chairmen of the boards, etc. that are on the boards of many companies or are the CEO's of their own companies. The Worldcom guy who was recently convicted taught Sunday School every week.
If the church really addressed the problem, you would see this happen:
(a): The wealthy CEO's within the church would have a hostle takeover to oust the pastor and leadership board.
(b): The wealthy ceo's would hold their money hostage from the offering plate until the addressing of the problem stopped.
(c): The wealthy (if unable to do "a" and 'b') would leave and make the church down the street large, wealthy, famous, and 'hip' to go to on Sunday mornings.
Doug,
Actually, some in my SS class did bring up the athlete and entertainlment salaries. We couldn't come to a conclusion that week.
But here is an interesting point.
I've been reading some of the best-selling business books in the past few years and several of them point out that the highest paid CEO's for the most part are just not turning their companies around. In fact, many of them sink them.
As for the athletes, ask the Lakers if it was worth paying O'Neil and Bryant so much. From the stand point of winning the championshp--no, because of their egositic personalities that got in the way and finally drove the poor coach into retirement. But from the stand point of ticket buyers--yes. And that is the bottom line just as the high paid CEO excites wall steet--at least for a while.
Dan,
I agree.
Bob,
Uh oh...you may be onto something.
Diane
Thanks for this great and provocative post. There are of course some Christians who are not silent about these issues - but they are not the ones most of us want to listen to!
"There is a solution for this. It's called the market."
The market is composed of people acting freely. And of course, we all know that as long as you do something freely, it isn't immoral.
Right?
The BIG question is then,
Should there be any boundaries at all for the market? And if so, WHO sets them?
In my Sunday School class, one of the members said that it certainly shouldn't be the government....but the stockholders. Hmmmmmm.....
What do you all think about that?
Minimum/Maximum income theory by someone in the green party. Check it out, It actually looks pretty feasable. There would be a minimum income of about $20 thousand, a minimum salary of about $30 thousand (so people will actually work), and a maximum income of 10 times that, or $300 thousand. Provides room for free market stuff while reducting the huge gap between the poor and the rich.
It's useful information
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How much do we invest in sin? Pepsi spends exorbitant amounts of money to support homosexual parades which seem to us as public orgies in plain view of our children, and yet when we have a church pot-luck, there's a Pepsi bottle sitting on the table. We go to a restaurant and ask for Coke, and the waitress asks, "Pepsi?", and we think we're somehow obligated to say, "Ok" as though it were unreasonable to turn away something that is almost the same thing but under a different brand name. Perhaps we should be boycotting the restaurant that serves Pepsi.
Do we go to movies to pay someone to sin so we can watch? Does that sound perverted? It is. Do we pay people to lure people into hell?
And for church, are we willing to lie or compromise with sin justifying ourselves by saying it is for a greater good? Have we regarded God a fool for having overlooked something? Have we felt He was in need of our greater wisdom and enlightenment? How stupid and arrogant we have become if that is so!
Christianity becomes real when it takes on faith, faith to trust, faith to obey, faith to believe in God's love, wisdom, goodness, ability, power, kindness, justice, and all. When Christianity becomes real within us, our love for sin dies and so does our participation in it. As for fake Christianity, there is no use for it except in the kingdom of Satan.
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