Stop The Exploitation!

Commentators and politicians who perhaps should know better regularly decry CEO pay, but Jobs’ staggering success with Apple shows how very meaningful a skilled chief is to any corporation. They’re sometimes the difference between bankruptcy and immense wealth creation, though in Jobs’ case it’s doubtful that the CEO-pay ankle biters will be heard uttering the simple truth that in terms of his Apple pay, Jobs was exploited.  Others will say not everyone is Steve Jobs, and that CEO pay should reflect just that, but then when he returned to Apple in 1997, Steve Jobs wasn’t Steve Jobs as Forbes contributor Nick Schulz so articulately pointed out last week.  Author of quite a few stupendous failures, Jobs arrived at Apple with questionable bona fides such that his pay package was doubtless deemed too generous by some.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2011/08/28/u-s-ceos-athletes-and-citizens-owe-steve-jobs-major-thanks/

Schumpeter long ago observed that capitalism “progressively raises the standard of life for the masses” for turning obscure and highly expensive luxury items into mass-produced goods that all classes can purchase. Apple’s iPhone, a product whose development Jobs doubtless helped quarterback, is a prime example of how the profit motive regularly reduces the lifestyle gap between the rich and poor for the baubles of the rich neatly predicting the goods we’ll all enjoy if governments get out of the way of progress.
Fair thee well, Mr. Jobs, and thank you.