The rich used to say 'no' to getting richer

FIFTY years ago, a top car executive named George Romney - yes, Mitt's father - turned down several big annual bonuses. He did so, he told his company's board, because he believed that no executive should make more than US$225,000 a year (which translates into almost US$2 million today).

He worried that "the temptations of success" could distract people from more important matters, as he said to a biographer, George Harris. This belief seems to have stemmed from both Mr Romney's Mormon faith and a culture of financial restraint that was once commonplace in the United States.

Mr Romney did not try to make every dollar that he could, or anywhere close to it. The same was true among many of his corporate peers. In the early 1960s, the typical chief executive at a large American company made only 20 times a…