Separating men from mercenaries

The ability to learn from mistakes and not to repeat them is perhaps the most important requirement of any good governance mechanism. Unfortunately, this is sorely neglected by corporates and regulators alike. How else can we explain the sub-prime fiasco, when we had Enron to learn from?
The root cause of both crises was the unbridled greed of top management, reflected by insanely high compensations. Today, a top corporate executive anywhere in the world earns several times what a good surgeon or teacher earns. In fact, what the Chief of the Indian Army earns in a year is probably less than what the CEO of any of the top 100 Indian companies earns in a month. Now to imagine that a CEO has greater responsibilities or IQ than the Chief of the Army is not unexpected of corporate egotism!
I agree that if corporates are self-funded they legally have the right to pay their CEOs whatever they like, even though the morality and social justice of this would be questionable. But at a time when the free market across the world is being pulled out of the ICU by the State using tax payer's money, the question to answer is whether enough is being done in the form of regulation to rein in top management wages. As rescuers, the State and the public have a right to insist on such regulation. Sadly we do not see enough focus on this, and my fear is that history will repeat itself.
Effective regulation over managerial remuneration should include aspects like fair distribution between short-term and long-term rewards, limits on the multiple between wages of the top management and the lower levels, and equity between corporate wages and remuneration in other comparable sectors of the society. I would like to see if any progressive corporates have the courage to come out with affirmative action on this. That would certainly separate the men from the mercenaries.