[identity profile] 0olong.livejournal.com 2011-06-09 12:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, there's a lot that we might be happier without in Japanese culture - but the point stands that pay is fairly clearly largely a cultural thing, not a pure economic thing. That is, it's allocated through the game of economics, but the parameters of that game are cultural as much as they're numerical.

And I'd like to see a culture of saying 'fuck you' to people who won't do their jobs unless they're paid hundreds of times - (or even just dozens) as much as other people. I think the knock-on effects on society of having some people being that rich are deeply negative, and even if we're not agreeing to tax them for 90% of their income or whatever, I don't think it's right at all to say 'their money, their business'... and that starts to seem like a no-brainer when the state ends up bailing out companies at least partly because they have been funnelling so much of their income into the hands of a few individuals.