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   🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana (revoluciana@chaosfem.tw)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 07:40:58 JST 🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana

   If you're cynical about #Capitalism but still focused on absurd income disparity between CEOs & low-level employees, you're still missing the point.

   Is that disparity unjust? Yes, but it's a distraction. The CEO is still technically a #labor position, albeit one unfairly compensated at the top of an unjust hierarchy.

   CEOs, though, are not the root of the problem.

   Shareholders are the problem. Shareholders are the owners of the company (Capital, hence Capitalism). They are the ones exploiting the workers by profiting off of their labor while the shareholders (Capitalists) do absolutely nothing. The CEO is just there to make sure that profits maintain as high as possible, including by squeezing every possible ounce of profit from the employees, for which they are rewarded handsomely.

   Focusing on the CEO is a tactic to prevent you from recognizing who is actually exploiting you and from gaining class consciousness.

   It prevents you from organizing against the source of the problem.

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     🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana (revoluciana@chaosfem.tw)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 07:40:52 JST 🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana

     in reply to

     Is this something a hypothetical generous CEO could even fight? Of course not, because in the US, at least, and likely most Capitalist countries, a CEO has a legal fiduciary responsibility to do what is in the best interest of creating most profit for shareholders. It's literally illegal for them to not exploit the workers as much as they possibly can in order to maximize profits.

     Sometimes, higher pay scales improve higher employee retention and attract better talent, for example, yes, but this is still done with the idea in mind that in order to maximize profits, they need to pay more for their talent. It is still in the interest of maximizing profits.

     It is literally illegal for a CEO to pay employees more than they feel they have to.

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     🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana (revoluciana@chaosfem.tw)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 07:40:54 JST 🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana

     in reply to

     And in case I need the disclaimer, yes, of course CEOs are often shareholders, too. But again, that's not the point. It's not the capacity of their CEO position that is the source of the issue in that case, because they could still walk away and they would still own their shares and their claim on any profit relative to their shares. It is still their capacity as a shareholder that is most important.

     AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
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     🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana (revoluciana@chaosfem.tw)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 07:40:55 JST 🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana

     in reply to

     Yes, that includes your retirement. But the vast majority of shares are not held in retirement accounts. Moreover, your retirement accounts tie you to the system, ensuring #Capitalism's long-term endurance.

     Also, if we lived in a different system, you wouldn't need shares of companies and profit you did not earn from labor you did not perform. You could earn the full value of your labor where you do work.

     We could even be living in a world where we don't need to personally hoard our wealth for retirement, disability, and other issues, but instead we provide for each other out of basic human compassion and community.

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     🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana (revoluciana@chaosfem.tw)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 07:40:56 JST 🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana

     in reply to

     For the record, all hierarchies are unjust.