Pure Unadulterated Socialism????

The CEO of Gravity Payments decided that he wanted to pay every employee at least $70,000 a year and cut his own pay to help do that.

What happens?  Conservative social media breaks out in hysteria being critical.  One pundit who I have never heard of "His mindset will hurt everyone in the end".  Rush Limbaugh labeled the move "pure, unadulterated socialism".

I don't know about my readers in Russia and the Ukraine who lived in pure unadulterated socialism, but a profit making enterprise that is free to hire and fire employees and decides that it wants to pay employees in a certain way, even if the wages are above market for some roles, does not strike me as socialism in any manner.

Perhaps if my last company's Board had not been so fixated on paying themselves so they could get rich quickly, and paid the lower end people a bit more, they would have been focused on the risks they were taking to get paid as they would have needed to work longer and they wouldn't have destroyed shareholder value the way they did.  Now a firm that once employed 120 people employs 30 or so and is simply a segment of a much larger firm.  And many of the well and less well paid people who did not survive the downsizing have suffered financial loss.

I have no idea what Gravity Payments does, but I suspect they are a high tech firm.  That means they have a high risk of failure.  If the CEO wants to have the best people he can find, pay them well so he has the best chance of making it over the long term, that seems like a valid capitalistic strategy to pursue and is certainly not socialism.

Socialism is when a business is on the government gravy train for its revenues generated by connections fostered by campaign contributions.  Say like Blackwater.   I am sure Rush Limbaugh saw them as a great example of capitalism even when they have seen their old employees convicted of murder.