I’m constantly amazed at the moral outrage people express at executive pay. For instance take this post expressing amazement that executives who spend 1.2 million dollars to renovate their offices can sleep at night while normal people lose their job or experience economic hardship. Presumably the idea is that it’s immoral for executives to be that profligate when other people at their company are being forced to make sacrifices. While unethical dealings to increase their earnings are obviously wrong the ‘wasteful’ behavior of these executives is no different from that of any other American.

I mean how many of us pay thousands of dollars to get a new car or purchase houses for 100s or thousands? These aren’t truly necessities. Sure, I live four miles from work and it’s almost always below freezing but I could leave two hours early every morning and walk. Sure, it might be shameful and unpleasant but most of us don’t have to buy a house or even rent an apartment of our own. We could live in our parents basements or share an apartment with others. Even if we walked miles in the snow every day and choose to live in our parents basement we would still be many times better off than the billions of people who live on less than a dollar a day. Our purchase of a new car or choice of a nice apartment is as wasteful relative to the way most of humanity lives as an executives expenditure of 1.2 million to redecorate his office.

Ultimately we evaluate our standard of living relative to our friends and associates. Owning a car or living in our own residence seems reasonable because that’s what our colleagues do and our social circle expects that we will do as well. The fact that we, just like these executives, could pass up those conveniences and gift that money to the poor doesn’t make us monsters in our eyes because we aren’t being any more selfish than our friends. Similarly in the circles these executives travel in these expenditures aren’t out of line. Sure, they look obscene to us but no more so than our use of resources looks to the worlds poor.