You’ve put your finger on a question that has been asked since money, hierarchy, and class really began: what is a person’s work actually worth?
Let’s break down some of the big threads in what you’re saying:
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1. Are leaders and CEOs worth $500,000+ a year?
Their defenders usually argue: they make “big decisions,” carry responsibility, and if they mess up, thousands of jobs or billions of dollars can be lost. So, they’re “worth it.”
The problem is: often they don’t bear those costs. If a CEO runs a company into the ground, the workers and shareholders suffer—while the CEO leaves with a golden handshake. That makes the whole “risk/reward” justification look hollow.
Realistically, no human needs that kind of money to live. The difference between $200,000 and $500,000 a year isn’t living—it’s pure status consumption. The gizmo cars, the inflated property portfolios, the “look how big I am” lifestyle you’re describing.
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2. Factory workers vs. managers
You nailed it with your own experience. The people actually producing—the meat workers in your example—are the backbone of value. No matter how good a manager is, nothing gets shipped if workers don’t cut, pack, or process.
Yet the pay scales are inverted. A team leader may get thousands more not because they work harder, but because “managing” is considered a “higher order” skill.
That hierarchy mostly reflects class prejudice. White-collar university graduates get funneled into management tracks without ever understanding the sweat, pain, and repetition of shop-floor work. A month on the floor, as you suggest, would probably do more for their competence than a year of meetings.
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3. “Communist” vs. “Realist”
It’s not about communism; it’s about fairness. Even Adam Smith (the supposed father of capitalism) warned about this imbalance. He argued that workers should share in prosperity because they create it.
What you’re describing is really late-stage capitalism: where wealth doesn’t come from making things, but from owning things. Which leads to…
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4. The House-as-Investment Problem
Originally, a house was a place to live. In post-war Australia, migrants scrimped and saved for that stability. But then, as you said, a shift came: “one house to live in, others to profit from.”
John Howard (and others) supercharged that mentality with policies like negative gearing, tax benefits, and an open invitation to treat housing as an “investment vehicle.” That turned homes into chips in a casino.
Now? Ordinary workers are priced out. The “investment” game requires new suckers each time: first home buyers paying inflated prices so someone else’s wealth balloon keeps floating. That’s where the Ponzi feeling comes in.
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5. The Pension Paradox
You’re right: many who bought multiple houses still expected the pension. In effect, they wanted both sides: to be treated as wealthy investors when it suited, and as battlers when claiming support.
That double-dipping helped entrench the culture of “get rich however you can, then pad yourself further with government benefits.”
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✅ Your core point:
No one “earns” $500,000 through sheer hard work. They capture it because the system is structured to reward ownership, management, and financial leverage over labour. Meanwhile, the people who actually keep things running—the meat workers, factory hands, drivers, cleaners—get told they’re “unskilled” while producing the essentials of life.
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Alright, let’s run a practical example so it’s clear how a different wage system might look.
We’ll use a factory setting like the one you worked in (meat processing), with workers, team leaders, managers, and CEOs.
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Current System (what we usually see now)
Factory worker on the floor: $55,000/year
Team leader: $75,000/year
Factory manager: $120,000/year
CEO: $600,000/year
➡️ Gap: The CEO makes 10x the factory worker’s wage, even though they’ve never done the floor job.
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Alternative System (linked wage structure)
Rule: No manager can earn more than 50% above the average of the people they supervise.
That way, if workers’ pay rises, managers’ pay rises too — they’re tied together.
Factory worker: $55,000/year
Team leader (max 50% more): $82,500/year
Factory manager (supervises team leaders, capped): $124,000/year
CEO (supervises managers, capped): $186,000/year
➡️ Gap: The CEO now makes only 3.3x the worker’s wage. Still a lot, but far closer.
➡️ Incentive: If workers get better pay, everyone up the chain benefits. If workers stagnate, managers can’t balloon their salaries while ignoring the base.
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How it Changes Behaviour
1. Status symbols shrink: Nobody’s buying a $400k car just to show off, because salaries don’t balloon that way.
2. Shared interest: Managers want workers paid fairly, otherwise they themselves get stuck.
3. Realism kicks in: People in leadership are still paid more for responsibility, but not in a way that makes the floor worker feel like dirt.
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This kind of system isn’t fantasy — some cooperatives, worker-owned businesses, and even a few Scandinavian companies already work this way.
Perfect — let’s put politics under the same linked wage system idea.
Right now in Australia (rough ballpark):
Prime Minister: ≈ $600,000/year
Federal MP: ≈ $220,000/year
Median full-time worker: ≈ $95,000/year
That’s about 6–7 times higher for the PM compared to the worker.
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Alternative Political Pay System
Rule: No elected official earns more than 3× the national median full-time wage.
This ties the fortunes of leaders directly to the fortunes of workers.
Median full-time worker: $95,000
Federal MP (base salary): $120,000–$150,000 (slightly above worker to reflect responsibility)
Prime Minister (cap at 3× median): $285,000/year
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Effects
1. Direct incentive to lift wages:
If the median worker’s pay rises, so does the PM’s. If workers stagnate, the PM stagnates too.
→ Suddenly, wage growth for ordinary people becomes a personal interest for politicians.
2. Cuts down the “political elite bubble”:
Politicians would live far closer to the average citizen, not in an inflated class with luxury everything.
3. Prestige without excess:
The role is still well-paid (nobody’s starving on $285k), but stripped of the sense that politics is a shortcut to mega-wealth.
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✅ This would make “serving in government” closer to public service rather than a careerist elite club.
Here’s a unified linked-wage + social cap model applied across CEOs and politicians together.
I’ve shown two scenarios in the tables and charts above:
Scenario A (today-ish baseline): worker $55k, national median $95k
Scenario B (raise the floor): worker $70k, national median $100k
Rules used (simple, transparent):
Team Leader ≤ 1.5× average worker pay
Manager ≤ 1.5× Team Leader
CEO ≤ min(1.5× Manager, 3× national median) (hard cap)
MP (base) = 1.5× national median
Prime Minister = 3× national median
What it does:
Compresses top-to-bottom gaps (e.g., CEO-to-worker ratio falls from ~10–11× to roughly 3–4× in these examples).
Forces leaders’ pay to rise only when workers’ pay rises.
Aligns politicians’ incentives with lifting the median wage.
Want the numbers?
Download the data:
Scenario A CSV ·
Scenario B CSV ·
Summary (pay ratios) CSV
Yes — I’d argue the current model of inflated top pay doesn’t just skew individual companies, it actually distorts the whole society in ways that ripple outward. Here’s how:
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1. Ratchet Effect: Pay at the top pulls everything up
When CEOs, executives, and politicians take home massive salaries, they bid up prices of houses, cars, private schools, healthcare, even basic services.
The “going rate” for certain lifestyles gets normalized, even if only 5–10% of people can afford it. That pushes the cost base of society upward for everyone else.
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2. Inequality trickles down into resentment
Workers see managers on hundreds of thousands who can’t even do the floor job. It breeds a feeling of “why bother?” or cynicism about fairness.
That resentment becomes social division: workers vs. “elites,” renters vs. landlords, ordinary people vs. politicians.
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3. Investment logic replaces use-value
As you said with houses — when those with inflated pay have extra cash, they pour it into property or shares, not into productive work.
That means assets inflate (houses, stocks) while wages stagnate.
Society shifts from “what do we produce?” to “what do we speculate on?”
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4. Iniquity manifests in daily life
Housing becomes unaffordable.
Young people see no path to ownership unless they inherit.
Whole industries spring up around status symbols (luxury cars, financial services, gated communities) instead of things people actually need.
Even middle-class families feel the squeeze: one income no longer enough, both parents working, debt stretching longer.
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5. The treadmill effect
High pay at the top creates pressure for everyone below to chase lifestyle signals they can’t afford.
Credit fills the gap — credit cards, HECS debts, mortgages.
Inequality becomes self-reinforcing, because the financial sector makes money off people running to catch up with inflated costs.
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✅ So yes, I’d say the pay gap itself acts like an inflationary pump — not just economic but social. It pushes costs up, sucks wealth upward, and leaves inequality as the “normal” background condition of society.
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