Keeping up with the CEOs: capitalism’s reality show

If more evidence were needed that workers’ losses are capitalists’ gains, then look no further than the latest Australian Council of Superannuation Investors report on CEO salaries. It finds that the CEOs of Australia’s top 100 companies last year “earned”, on average, 55 times the average salary of an Australian worker. That’s up from 50 times the year before.

At the top is the CEO of News Corp, who received $42 million for managing Rupert Murdoch’s far-right propaganda machine—Sky News Australia, the Australian and dozens of other rags masquerading as journalism. Not far behind are the bosses of Macquarie and Commonwealth banks, who earned a combined $38.7 million for squeezing billions of dollars out of working-class families. Rounding out the list are the bosses of two of the planet’s most destructive corporations—Rio Tinto and BHP. They pocketed a cool $19 million each.

Such eye-watering salaries at the top end of town might have you thinking that at least some of the wealth would trickle down. You would be wrong. In fact, the opposite is true. The cost-of-living crisis has resulted in a transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. Analysis by the Australia Institute in November last year found that a full-time worker is, on average, $8,000 worse off compared to just three years ago. A big part of the decline is due to housing. Whether someone is a mortgage holder or a renter, a bigger chunk of their pay packet is going to either the bank or the landlord.

The situation is particularly bad for workers on the bottom end of the wage scale. Just over 900,000 low-income workers on award wages have seen their real wages fall by 14.4 percent over the last four years. These workers are disproportionately young and in less stable forms of employment, like casual work.

And yet, the lobbyists of Australian businesses vehemently oppose any notion that wages should rise by even the slightest amount above inflation. The Australian Industry Group considered the Fair Work Commission’s recent 3.5 percent increase in award wages “higher than necessary” and “well beyond what current economic conditions can safely sustain”.

The growing gap between rich and poor is not an unfortunate accident; it’s capitalism working as intended. CEOs live lives of luxury while workers must be grateful for their crumbs. Only a serious fightback of the working class can start to change this.