The next time you go to the movies, remember the Norman conquest of 1066.
That’s when William the Conqueror crossed over the English Channel from Normandy and defeated the last Anglo-Saxon king, changing the course of world history. Back then, the feudal system was in full swing, with medieval peasants toiling while lords and ladies lived in sumptuous luxury. It was a time, in some ways, not unlike our own.
A recent report that I co-wrote for the Institute for Policy Studies found 50 publicly traded U.S. corporations that paid their CEOs more than 1,000 times what they paid their median workers in 2018.
Need some perspective for that? Try this: If some lord in 1066 had collected 1,000 times the earnings of his peasants, those poor unfortunates would still be working today — 953 years later — to make as much as their lord pocketed in a single year.
The folks who take your ticket at the movies could relate to that.
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