5 million is quite a generous figure, considering Henry Ford (no commie, he!) thought that the wage differential should never exceed 20 to 1. We're nipping at the heels of a 500 to 1 ratio now, a difference that would have shocked even a Ford.In my opinion, greed itself doesn't give an adequate explanation for the soaring wage differential--CEO's take all that money because it's SAFER FOR THE SYSTEM than spreading it out equally. So, of course, Michael Eisner knows he doesn't need 500 million dollars, but having it in his bank account is much better than giving it to the worker's in Asia who might use it for leverage.
It's not just a question of how much CEO's want but also what workers would do if the wealth was in their hands. The logic of capitalism DEMANDS that the workers live pretty much paycheck to paycheck, hand to mouth. Any more would give the workers too much power, and this would be true even with vast disparities in income and wealth.
We have to remember that our only power is labor power, and the only thing we have over the capitalists' is our ability to withold that labor power (i.e. go on strike). If the average workers had, say, six month's salary the bank--imagine the strike potential there!
