We read at epi.org, that "… the CEO-to-typical-worker compensation ratio (options realized) was 20-to-1 in 1965," and "… the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio rose to 221-to-1 in 2018." it is a real stretch of the imagination to believe that CEOs, in whole, are eleven times smarter and eleven times more efficient, and eleven times more valuable, then they were back in 1965, of which, even back then the CEO-to-typical-worker compensation ratio was already 20-to-1, signifying that a typical worker had to work 20 hours just to match the pay of the CEO working but just one hour; of which nowadays that typical worker must now work 220 hours, or five and one-half weeks to match the pay of just one hour of work by the CEO.
The blame for all of this increased CEO pay at the expense of the common man can be laid typically at the feet of upper management, as well as upon the Board of Directors of such, and the insane pay packages thereby put together to compensate CEOs by these enablers. Of course, such a belief is very self serving as lucrative compensation packages approved thereby, also helps to feather their own executive beds, and thereby takes away from the typical worker what rightly they should be receiving some reasonable portion of. To a very large extent, CEOs are extremely adept at augmenting their base salary, through the receipt of vesting options, favorably valued and of immense quantity, that provides them with a crazy gargantuan amount of additional compensation, which often dwarfs their published salary, and of which the common man, typically does not receive, or receives such at the smallest of fractions of those so provided to the CEO.
While it must be said that the good profits so generated in any business, typically requires hard work, good strategic decisions, the proper use of research and development monies, competent marketing, and a slew of other attributes; it can also be said, that quite obviously one sole CEO cannot and does not do it all themselves. In fact, by contributions of all of the workers, large and small, profits are generated; so that, at the end of the day, the decision that really needs to be made is whether or not to make a fair distribution of those profits so generated.
Quite clearly, even the greediest of all CEOs, knows intuitively that they are not 221 times more valuable than their own typical worker, for they do not work 221 times more hours, nor do their generate 221 times more productivity. What CEOs are very, very good about is being the first in line to get their share of the profits, and to make sure that those profits are divvy up in a manner in which those that are in the pole position to do so, get as much as they can possibly get, without nary a thought about the fairness of it.
In consideration that public companies are a creature of the state, and that their purported purpose is for these artificial creations of the state to be of benefit to the people that make up that country; then it so behooves those that regulate these public companies, and thereby permits such to be traded on public stock exchanges, that the compensation thereof of that upper management, such as a CEO, must be fair to that public, at large, and in particular, those that are the typical workers of such. After all, the evidence is quite clear, today's CEOs have no shame in extracting as much of the profit from a given corporation for their own personal purse at the expense of those others that are employed there; so that, in an era in which trade unions have been eviscerated, it is up to this government, of, for, and by the people, to make right, what clearly is wrong.