While the idea of limiting executive pay seems a million miles away from reality here in the USA the Swiss are seeking to cap Exec pay. Europe's becoming more Americanized, has increased the spread between the haves and have nots.
Its of course a global problem, but not just between rich and poor nations and within poor countries. With the maturation of Neoliberalism, its also became an issue once again in so called advanced modern societies. The problem has been perpetuated by US business elites who have successfully engineered a take-over of the political elites who in turn have manipulated a large section of the population to vote against their own economic self-interests. This "success" has led to regressive tax schemes, corporate subsidies and other pro-wealthy policies that have allowed us to reach a record breaking Dow 16000. But this success has come at a price as much of the working and middle class people make less than 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years ago.
Wealth cannot just be created out of thin air, it comes from gains in work and productivity and the value of things created. And for the US elites their need for money and power is now greater than the economy can sustain. So therefore they must invest in clever schemes to siphon money from working people.
Its understandable the European Elites would want to keep up with their American counterparts in terms of pay and wealth accumulation and so European business elite pay has started to follow US trends. The problem is that erosion of labor and other so called special interests that balance the dominance of society by the economically powerful is not so easy to do as in the US.
Compounding this in Europe is the rising costs of generous social programs such as universal health care, a guaranteed income and free college education. The rising costs of these programs has increased pressure to curb social programs for the poor while loosening many regulations that limit corporate and elite wealth accumulation.