by Holman W. Jenkins Jr.

About the author: Holman W. Jenkins Jr. is a business reporter and columnist for the Wall Street Journal.

Since the takeover battles of the 1980s, the media has befuddled itself over the emergence of ever-fatter CEO salaries, golden parachutes and other large individual payments, which have become the norm in corporate restructuring dramas. These are seen as evidence of market failure—i.e., CEOs are looting—or as proof that the rich are only getting richer, while everybody else gets laid off.

A Way to Balance Powerful Egos

It seems to have occurred to only a few eccentric economists that, in the field of human conflict, money’s growing role as the universal solvent actually represents progress. If golden parachutes had existed in Shakespeare’s day, the bard would have...