I got bogged down with specifics.

I think there is something inherently wrong with capping earnings. It seems you are overly fixated on remuneration. I deliberately wanted to address all the other metrics of success as well.

Yossarian wrote:

tax is the most obvious

And the least effective. For tax to genuinely make a difference, it would need to be eye-wateringly high. Then companies and high-earners genuinely would move abroad. It can work but you'd need much of the developed world to move in the same direction at once.
Scandinavian countries have high tax rates (Sweden iirc has a 50% flat tax rate for everyone) and are seen as some of the best examples of egalitarian systems. But they benefit from being very small. It's therefore easier to run things from the centre. The solution doesn't necessarily scale up. Who here would trust the last couple of governments with 50% of their income? 

Yossarian wrote:

the other is setting a maximum wage, perhaps as a multiple of the lowest/average wage of the other people in the company.

Yeah this is an interesting one. The argument against this is that setting a limit on people's earning stops new innovation. People would just stop building up their new companies, stop investing in new industries, once they've built up to the maximum level allowed. It would stop the 'wealth creators' creating wealth, or at least, creating as many jobs.  There's bound to be some negative effects from it. But god knows how much really. 

Some of the rhetoric here is clearly bullshit but how much do we owe our current (pretty high) level of technological sophistication to the greed / ambition enabling system we have at the moment?  

Who really advances humanity forward? The millions of people with money, spending and investing it, raising living standards? Maybe they just make things worse and humanity would be well advanced anyway thanks to the efforts of scientists and others, motivated to advancing technological progress and human knowledge. It could be that capping greed / ambition could have zero net detriment. More money spread around in a number of smaller industries and companies. 

What would have happened to the computer industry in the 80s if MS had just given up when reaching a certain amount of the market? Better? Worse? Definitely less standardised.

Pharmaceuticals is another tricky one.

REVOLUTION.

Cameron out, Fidel in.

Maximum wage argument is exactly the same as the high tax rate argument, no?

Wow. I wonder which one of us is coming across like a dick.

How do curtail the jk rowlings of this world? Professional sportsmen and women?

Lord_Griff wrote:

Capping earnings would be problematic as it offers no help for those who don't work or choose not to work.

There's often this idea from certain sections of society about people who choose not to work. I very much doubt that there are many people who would choose a life of indolence if they could, people like to have a purpose in life, something to do with themselves, something to strive for. And frankly, even if they would, is that the sort of person you'd want working for you?

As for those who aren't working through no choice of their own, well, that's what the tattered remnants of our benefits system is supposed to be for.

Would you argue that a cleaner in company A could earn twice that of a cleaner in company B as long as company A is twice as successful?

Theoretically. Presumably it'd result in those with the most experience and who are the best at their jobs being able to obtain the highest paying positions, which would be better than our current situation in which someone who's been cleaning for twenty years is unlikely to make much more money than those who've been cleaning for two.

Lord_Griff wrote:

How do curtail the jk rowlings of this world? Professional sportsmen and women?

There's still the option of tax for those individuals who wouldn't be covered by the current system.

Yoss, is a cleaner with 20 years experience likely to be better than a cleaner with 3 years experience?

Yes. Even low-skilled jobs aren't unskilled. And having twenty years experience in which you have, for instance, never been late or barely had any time off work would certainly make you are more attractive employee.

Lord_Griff wrote:

Highest earners still pay over 50% in tax.

That's been abolished hasn't it? And even if it hasn't, it would still be below 50% as you only pay 50% on your earnings over a certain threshold.

Yossarian wrote:

Yes. Even low-skilled jobs aren't unskilled. And having twenty years experience in which you have, for instance, never been late or barely had any time off work would certainly make you are more attractive employee.

What if they've been doing it 20 years and they're shit, turn up late all the time and don't give a fuck?

Office boy millionaires at Apple.

Isn't there arguments that one of the reasons that major diseases are taking so long to cure is because current set treatments make pharmaceutical companies billions and an end to cancer would mean a massive deduction in revenues? Greed itself us having a reverse effect on innovation because the status quo keeps the trust funds and pensions doing nicely.
same could be said for greener energy sources vs the continued use of fossil fuels.

There is also the continual popularity of the 'leveller event' in entertainment. Where the world is wiped out/ attacked / infected and survival is based upon merit and skill over wealth and power. Many of us feel slightly betrayed? / lied to? by the very powers that are meant to be looked up to. E.g. MPs and expense claims, bankers and their lies and risks for profit, the rich and famous avoiding tax where they can.

The hilarity of it all being that we are all so focused on ourselves as chanted at us day by day in the media that the chances of some kind of group action is as likely as me admitting im not a dog..
We accept the current situation.

Let me ask you all a question. Do you think we really live in a democracy? Where the people have any input on how the country is run? I do not.

drivel complete..

Apple (along with Google, IBM and Pixar) have been sued by the Department of Justice for entering into wage fixing agreements. Hardly an advertisement for the free market rewarding the successful.