AN old Russian fable tells of two poor peasants – Boris, who had a goat, and Ivan, who didn’t. One day, Ivan came upon a strange-looking lamp; when he rubbed it, a genie appeared. She told him that she could grant him just one wish, but it could be anything he wanted.
Ivan said, “I want Boris’ goat to die.”
This fable may tell us something painful about many Americans today, when so many people are preoccupied with the pay of corporate CEOs. It isn’t that the CEOs’ pay affects them so much. If every oil-company executive in America agreed to work for nothing, that wouldn’t be enough to lower the price of a gallon of gasoline by a dime.
But too many people are like Ivan, who wanted Boris’ goat to die.
It isn’t the general public that singles out CEOs for so much attention. Politicians and the media have focused on business leaders, and the public has been led along, like sheep.
The logic is simple: Demonize those whose place or power you plan to usurp.
Politicians who want the power to micro-manage business and the economy know that demonizing those who run businesses is the opening salvo in the battle to take over their roles.
Those who want more power know that giving the people somebody to hate and fear is the key.
This isn’t just a question of which elites win out in a tug of war in America. It is the people at large who have the most at stake.
We have just seen one of the biggest demonstrations of what happens in an economy when politicians tell businesses what decisions to make.
For years, using the powers of the Community Reinvestment Act and other regulatory powers, along with threats of legal action, politicians have pressured banks and other lending institutions into lending to people they would not lend to otherwise.
Yet, when all this blows up in our faces and the economy turns down, what is the answer? To have more economic decisions made by politicians, because they choose to say that “deregulation” is the cause of our problems.
No matter what happens, for politicians it is “heads I win and tails you lose.” If we keep listening to them and their media allies, we are all going to keep losing big. Keeping our attention focused on CEO pay – Boris’ goat – is all part of this game. We are all goats if we fall for it.