Two stark facts about our world, from yesterday’s news:<\/p>\n
(1) that a single man can be paid $1.84 billion dollars<\/a>, as the Wall Street Journal announced yesterday — that’s 1,840 million dollars — over the last ten years of careening capitalism,<\/p>\n (2) and that this doesn’t strike enough people as an obscenity to be labeled as such on the front page of newspapers around the world. (Compare the 109<\/a> news articles about it with the thousands devoted to other topics.)<\/p>\n Couldn’t a single<\/em> million have been enough reward? But almost two thousand of them, all to one guy? Did he contribute 4000 times<\/a> in value to the world what the average American farmer contributed (and well over a million times the average non-U.S. farmer)?<\/p>\n This tops all the figures I’ve previously seen for CEO pay (which have gotten up to $100 million or so a year<\/a>, and therefore $1 billion over a decade). Here’s the reigning top ten<\/a>. And these are just the CEOs, not the self-made gazillionnaires but the corporate execs.<\/p>\n Exam question: Does this mean that (a) we are all in the same boat, but we (or capitalism) just don’t know it? Or that (b) some of us are in various sized boats (a few on yachts the size of the Titanic), while others are just treading water for as long as we can?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two stark facts about our world, from yesterday’s news: (1) that a single man can be paid $1.84 billion dollars, as the Wall Street Journal announced yesterday — that’s 1,840 million dollars — over the last ten years of careening capitalism, (2) and that this doesn’t strike enough people as an obscenity to be labeled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691215],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics_postpolitics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-ld","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8930,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/08\/25\/mckibben-the-frontlines-of-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1315,"position":0},"title":"McKibben & the frontlines of war","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently found myself in a part of Mississauga, Ontario (a bedroom community of Toronto),\u00a0in which more than 90% of the visible landscape (excepting the sky) appeared to consist of concrete, in the form of pavement, asphalt, buildings, and such. The remaining 5-10% -- rows of evenly spaced short trees,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"park-picture","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2016\/07\/park-picture-275x190.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10458,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/03\/30\/pandemic-politics-on-disaster-capitalism-socialism-and-environmentalism-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1315,"position":1},"title":"Pandemic politics: on disaster capitalism, socialism, and environmentalism","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This was originally posted over a week ago, but then taken down by request as it was being considered for publication elsewhere (but not published there). A shorter version of it appeared yesterday at VT Digger. The school I work for, the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Environment and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/03\/Screen-Shot-2020-03-18-at-1.55.35-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/03\/Screen-Shot-2020-03-18-at-1.55.35-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/03\/Screen-Shot-2020-03-18-at-1.55.35-PM.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/03\/Screen-Shot-2020-03-18-at-1.55.35-PM.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/03\/Screen-Shot-2020-03-18-at-1.55.35-PM.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1284,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/06\/03\/mutant-capitalism-v-homeland-security\/","url_meta":{"origin":1315,"position":2},"title":"mutant capitalism v. homeland security","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=n7Fzm1hEiDQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1 As told by John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and Hoodwinked. Thanks to Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters for the tip.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/n7Fzm1hEiDQ\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7645,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/06\/12\/on-naming-the-anthropocene\/","url_meta":{"origin":1315,"position":3},"title":"On naming the Anthropocene","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The following are the comments I prepared for the roundtable \"The Arts and Humanities Respond to the Anthropocene.\" They follow in the line of critical thinking on the Anthropocene initiated by\u00a0gatherings like the Anthropocene Project (see here, here, and here, and some of the posts\u00a0at A(S)CENE) and journals like Environmental\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"HABITUS-9-medium-1024x682","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/06\/HABITUS-9-medium-1024x682-275x183.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8302,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/06\/23\/cinema-ecology-the-death-of-carbon-capitalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":1315,"position":4},"title":"Cinema, ecology, & the death of carbon capitalism","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 23, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Rice University's\u00a0Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences\u00a0(CENHS) has made my Cultures of Energy talk available on their YouTube channel. It's a longer version of the material I presented\u00a0at the SCMS \"Post-Cinema\" panel. Here's the abstract: This paper thinks through the intersections of three developments: (1) the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/25_cwFE2vKI\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1645,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/12\/15\/capitalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":1315,"position":5},"title":"Capitalism","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Quick thought after listening to Tom Ashbrook's \"On Point\" today about the estate tax: Any system, as a coordinated set of actants and relations, will disproportionately favor those of its members who know how to work it for their own benefit. A pragmatic egalitarianism will attempt to minimize the opportunities\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}