VERY often we think that in a vast multitude the action of one man does not matter. It will be absorbed by the majority or the minority. It will count for nothing. Here is a piece of news that seems to suggest that that kind of thinking is wrong. We cannot let it pass without giving it notice.
Dan Price, 30, the CEO of a small firm in Seattle, had been bothered by the complaint of many of his friends about the cost of living and the bare adequacy of their salaries to make ends meet. He decided to do something about it.
He cut his salary by almost 94 percent to give a raise to his lowest-paid employees. Now he will be receiving $75,000 a year, instead of $1 million, the difference augmented by profits earned the previous year he distributed out as increases to the pay of his employees. Out of his 120 workers, 70 benefited, with 40 of them doubling their salaries. The average salary went up to $70,000, from $48,000.
In the United States a typical CEO receives 350 times more than the average employee.
Dan is a picture of contentment. He said his reduced salary will still be enough for him to pick up the bar tab with his friends at least once a month. Besides, he has savings from his previous salary. His salary will be restored once a desired profit level is reached by his firm.
“It’s a capitalist solution to a social problem,” Dan is quoted as saying.
The capitalist system is so vast and so powerful, it has withstood revolutions waged by millions against it. Call it the generator of repulsive inequalities, it remains the powerful creator of unimaginable riches. Today its predominance in the world is unchallenged.
The inequality between the rich and the poor in capitalist societies has become so repugnant that not just people-oriented governments but religion, as well, has ranged itself against its perpetuation. This is how it has been in history. Social, political and religious leaders have demanded the system’s reform, to no avail.
The call for minimum wages for workers has resounded everywhere there is hardly a soul that describes itself as humanist that is against it. Even leaders of giant corporations are in favor of living wages for workers. Yet, the call has remained largely unheeded. Minimum wages may give solace to bleeding hearts, but they increase production costs, and that is hardly acceptable to profit-maximizing enterprises.
What can we do? The action of Dan is much too small to matter in the universal capitalist scheme of things. Dan himself surely did not think of himself as modifying the capitalist ethic. But, surely, there has to be something that a person can do to help his neighbor achieve a level of human dignity.
After all, as the chairman has said, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”