Bringing Human Development & the Capabilities framework to Social Impact for Social enterprises
🙏 Ingrid Robeyns for sharing. Excellent podcast, esp. your point on 'regulative ideal'. Here are 3 thoughts to supplement: 1. Wages as a distributive function. Apart from the highly debatable issue of commensurate remunerations, billionaires are not made rich merely by their wages, but rather their stake/ownership of asset(s) that generate wealth. Consider the case of $0 or $1 CEO salaries. What makes them worth billions are certainly not their wages but the mkt cap of their company's stock. As for liquidity options to fund their lifestyle needs, they either draw a taxable dividend, or they borrow against these assets in what is known as the 'Buy, Borrow, Die Strategy', conveniently avoiding tax to a large degree. While these are an open secret at least amongst the rich, as a VC, Nick should be well aware that wages certainly does not work as a distributive function in the manner he claims: 'If you want true opportunity, then it turns out that wages are the way in which we distribute opportunity in most societies & if ppl don't have any, they can't flourish.' 2. Your proposal on 'what happens before you're 18'. Perhaps you may already know of the posthumous work of Lynn Stout (2019), published by co-authors Sergio Gramitto & Tamara Belinfanti: 'Citizen Capitalism: How A Universal Fund Can Provide Influence and Income to All'. She proposes a universal fund where citizens who turn 18 shall receive a share. Much like your motivation, Stout's proposal aims to address reducing inequality, along w/ collective voting rights in shaping corporate governance w/o necessitating gov. interventions. It aligns well w/ your notion of levelling the playing field via redistribution. Moreover, taxed inheritance could be directed to these funds w/ voting steering investments, rather than be appropriated by the gov. to then fund, say, 'guns, germs, & steel'. 3. On Nick's idea of linking wages at the bottom to wages at the top. Fancy linking min. wage w/ a $1 CEO wage? The case of E. Musk is even quite the opposite: under CA law he had to take a min. wage rather than be paid $1/$0. If one gets the 1st point, it is not hard to grasp how such a proposal would not only fail but have an opposite effect. I'm sure Nick intends well, though he is surely also aware that income (& not net worth or wage) transparency at the top is a highly opaque matter. The practicalities of even knowing what the rich draw is so impenetrable that it would render the idea impossible. And as for those who borrow against their assets, how would one even peg this w/ min. wage? Lastly, though I critique Nick, this is in the salutary spirit of engaged discussion. The podcast is an exemplar of how such challenging potentially provocative topics should be conducted. All parties were respectful, listened to, & engaged each other w/ utmost generous demeanour. It sets an example against the talking-over polarizations often found elsewhere in American media. Well deserved Kudos 👏 here!
The billionaire venture capitalist Nick Hanauer interviewed me for his podcast Pitchfork Economics. We agreed about a lot, but not about everything. https://lnkd.in/eVFAZ8N8
Bringing Human Development & the Capabilities framework to Social Impact for Social enterprises
4moOn $1 CEO Salary club: https://www.businessinsider.com/ceos-who-take-1-dollar-salary-or-less-2015-8#edward-lampert-9 on the Buy, Borrow, Die Strategy: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrae/2022/07/14/how-the-rich-use-the-buy-borrow-die-strategy-to-avoid-large-tax-bills/