[everybodyknows]

> ... top marginal rates in the 1950s and 1960s were extraordinarily high by present-day standards

> ... observers from the 1950s to today repeatedly noted that, at one time, social rules curbed CEO greed.

https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2016/08/18/executive-compens...

Other sources -- sorry no links -- ascribe the genesis of such "social rules" to a US WW II norm of austerity among elites, who might otherwise have found ways to seize a greater share of the economy's wealth for their own dissipative pleasures.

[AnimalMuppet]

Or the threat of Communism, which was still at least officially trying to inspire revolution around the world. If you have someone trying to inspire your workers to revolt, you'd better be giving them a better deal than the other guy is offering.