Because, according to Thomas Piketty, CEO pay is the prime mechanism for economic inequality. Shareholders have no say. The shareholder say-on-pay movements failed to even get CEO pay on the agenda. Corporations are not run like an American democracy but a Russian or Chinese style democracy. The CEOs control the shareholder vote by the proxy system. The actual workings of the BoD election are kept from the public. The CEOs in fact elect the Board that sets their pay. JK Galbraith understood that when he said: The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.