Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the whole 21 hour work week thing, I think one way to deal with the compensation issue would be to enforce maximum gaps. By which I mean, write a law that says the top compensated individual in any company can only be compensated so many times the bottom. So if an executive wants to be paid more, after a certain point he has to raise everyone else's salary too. This would also help deal with the issue of executive…
That sounds like a fine idea, but realize that just before the law comes into force affected companies will move their operations overseas [1]. Do you support punitive tariffs on foreign imports? [1] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2040142,00....
It'd cause all manner of hell on implementation, because it would completely turn the world economy on its head. Right now we're really dependent on abusing the hell out of cheap labor and countries that don't have a solid regulatory structure. So while we sit here and claim to decent labor and environmental standards we're consuming a ton of goods produced with out them at a cheap cost. But the world is a single, closed system. At some point, this is going to catch up to us.
We could use our consumer power to force an equalization in the global labor market by making a simple declaration: obey our labor and environmental standards -- and let us confirm that you do -- or you don't get to sell your goods to our market. Period. Suddenly, outsourced labor looks a lot less attractive. If you can't abuse the cheap labor and lax environmental laws in other countries, then there's no reason not to put your production in the US.
Of course, this all depends on the fact that the US is one of the top consumer markets in the world, and that companies will do anything to avoid being cut out of it. The window of opportunity in which that's true is closing fast with the rise of China. And may, actually, already be closed. Of course, if you could get multiple high consumption countries together and agree on mutual labor standards to enforce and that any company not fulfilling them would be kept out of any of those countries then it'd have a lot more power.
And of course, there's always the fact that any companies that refused could always be replaced by start-ups.
The change over would be a little rough and chaotic, and it's hard (impossible?) to predict what would actually happen during it. But if we manage to make it through it, the resulting world would have a level playing field for labor and environmental practices. It's difficult to predict the effect it would have on living standards for those of us currently abusing everyone else. Our living standard might drop a bit as the price of goods goes up. But then, if this were linked with the previously mentioned law, a lot of the wealth that's caught up in the top of the economy right now would be forced down. That wealth would create a lot more consumers with money to spend, which means more demand, which means more jobs for everyone. So it could mean everyone's living standards go up -- despite a rise in the cost of labor and therefor goods.
I'd be really interested to see someone model it.