Morals and markets and the common good Part 2

                                       - New York Times headline April 24, 2021

The New York Times story makes this point: "The coronavirus plunged the world into an economic crisis, sent the U.S. unemployment rate skyrocketing and left millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet. Yet at many of the companies hit hardest by the pandemic, the executives in charge were showered with riches."

My March post on this topic focused on how markets must not be regarded as a morality-free zone. The way the individuals in the business elite plump for self-interest within their select group leaves a stain of corruption on all who are business leaders. I had these deplorable figures in my information:

On Twitter this week the US figures were again highlighted with tweets discussing data that CEO pay growth from 1979-2019 was 1167%, whereas worker pay growth from 1979-2019 was 13.7%. These US figures came out last year in a report by the Economic Policy Institute.  

The Times has this information:

Boeing had a historically bad 2020. Its 737 Max was grounded for most of the year after two deadly crashes, the pandemic decimated its business, and the company announced plans to lay off 30,000 workers and reported a $12 billion loss. Nonetheless, its chief executive, David Calhoun, was rewarded with some $21.1 million in compensation.

Norwegian Cruise Line barely survived the year. With the cruise industry at a standstill, the company lost $4 billion and furloughed 20 percent of its staff. That didn’t stop Norwegian from more than doubling the pay of Frank Del Rio, its chief executive, to $36.4 million.

And at Hilton, where nearly a quarter of the corporate staff were laid off as hotels around the world sat empty and the company lost $720 million, it was a good year for the man in charge. Hilton reported in a securities filing that Chris Nassetta, its chief executive, received compensation worth $55.9 million in 2020. 

 As a final comment, a quotation used in my previous post:

But that behaviour is the logical consequence of the individualism that has been our substitute for morality since the 1960s: the ‘I’ that takes precedence over the ‘We’. How could we reject the claims of traditional morality in every other sphere of life and yet expect them to prevail in the heat of the marketplace?

Read on my Substack website for a new perspective