The gender wage gap controversy reminds me of an old joke...

[malthaussen]

3. Then except for a handful at the top...

... it's all stink suckage, nyet? So the possibility of truly fair compensation for one's labor is unrealistic, hence focusing on a smaller goal -- such as, bluntly, making sure "I get mine" is not unimaginable. Dunno about you, but I don't know anyone who wouldn't say they work their butts off. Which leads me to wonder why, if this is so, there are so many assholes around.

But there's a flip side, too. The ones making the greater pay for the suckage are equally interesting in keeping down the compensation for the others, to "get theirs," because in the final analysis, "pay equality" is gonna mean spreading the same amount of dollars around a larger number of people, or lowering the wages of one group to raise the wages of another. Because there is no way the moneybags are gonna raise the overall compensation for the work the peons do. So we have those with the larger half of the ten percent of the total cookie with a vested interest to keep down those who have a smaller piece. This is one reason, I find, that explains why so many "vote against their best interests" and elect Republicans, who while they are not interested in elevating anyone out of poverty, can play to the fear that the voter is going to lose some part of the little he has. The irony is, of course, that then they take it away anyway.

-- Mal