Within a business, if an employer is actually interested in fairness, "profit sharing" can work. It does depend on what the business is. Ipterich's question is a good one. What is a "market wage?" Doesn't it depend on just which market you decide to look at? There is a Bangladesh market wage. There is a NYC market wage. According to dismal, I guess the employer who controls all the options would lean toward the orient.
Last night I watched a half hour interview of Christine LeGarde (hope the spelling is right) of IMF by Charley Rose and it occurred to me about half way through the interview that is was just a "technical talk" about the attitudes of important people. She explained that if we just whip the workers a little harder, we might get more growth. Both the interviewer and the lady director assumed that growth of the economy was the prime directive without even considering anything but the markets in which they personally were active. There was no indication on either of their parts that the economy has such a profound effect on the environment and society or that the nature of the growth had to necessarily be beneficial to society. It was just a matter of doing something and causing more "economic activity" more "production" and more "growth."
Their entire discussion was totally devoid of any social or environmental concern. Would growth of the coal mining industry be a good thing? To LeGarde. I suppose so. She and Charley Rose both treated the economy as some sort of insular game and failed in any way to relate it to the common man or woman living on the ground. Discussion of profit sharing has the same quality. Profits from what? Private prisons, arms manufacture, sweat shops, corporate raids, privatization of the commons? These things all have the ability to grow and to yield profits.
What is lacking in any of these banker gurus' calculation is any form of morality excepting that they must always protect the investment class. If and when our society begins to understand better the environment in which it must exist, these banking gurus and oligarchs really will have nothing to offer in terms of improving the overall status of society in the natural environment. It was fascinating how sterile and detached their conversation was.
