The illusion of equality that is sold, but it is snake oil

There's talk about young people wanting to cap corporate salaries. Let's examine this policy from an non-ideological perspective. The argument against this may be that it is a socialist idea. On the other hand, big corporations are using the public markets to enrich themselves while denying the fruits of their paper wealth to others. Corporations get their charters from government action. The government means "everybody", and is therefore no longer entirely private arrangement.

There's another thought I'd add to this mix. Market cap is defined as the current market price times the share price at market prices. Okay, but market prices are dynamic. A market cap is therefore not a fixed and unchanging price. If millions of shares go on the market all at one time, the market price will go down due to an excess of supply.

Just saying that the market cap is not an accurate measurement of wealth. A lot of the wealth may be speculative, with many buyers coming in order to reap a profit later of today's demand for the stock. A hot stock today may be a loser tomorrow.

Inherent wealth isn't so transient. If you have a skill and you keep it sharp, that is a form of wealth. A skill set of many various skills makes one a wealthy person ( in a sense ) as well.

Likewise, if one wins a lottery, they may have money. But maybe not for long. Having money doesn't necessarily make you wealthy if you don't know how to manage it properly.

Young people may be plugged into the seeminly "unfair" nature of the market economy. But to keep all people the same is going to relegate people to a lower standard of living, because all of the merit has gone out of it. Without incentives, nobody will seek to improve themselves, and therefore make themselves worthy of their money.

If you just give money away, why improve yourself? Keeping everyone "equal" has its downsides. But there's nothing wrong about rectifying unjust practices. If corporate salaries are really too rich to be justified, and if the corporations are in existence due to the government action, then it is not injustice to limit their salaries to some extent. But how do you decide what's "fair"?

The snake oil is in the details of how this "fairness" is going to be determined. People who seek government interventions don't always get it to stop in convenient spots. Government's powers have a tendency to grow. Those in the government may well go too far when the government gets too big and powerful. The illusion is that the government will always act in the best interests of all. But who will tell the government "no" when it gets too big and powerful?