I wouldn’t normally launch into an economic diatribe on this blog, but after hearing some corporate leaders react to Obama’s $500,000 pay cap idea, I couldn’t hold it in.

As you’ve no doubt read, Obama wants to cap salaries for executives who get bailout money from the Feds. If you get taxpayer money, you can only pay your head honchos $500,000 a year.

When I heard that announcement, I didn’t think Wall St. CEOs and corporate capitalists would publicly object. How could they? After sinking the global economy, how could the Gilded Class even pretend to argue that they deserve, well, anything? I figured they would let the announcement go publicly unanswered, while they tried to eviscerate it behind closed doors.

Not so.

CEOs, executive compensation “experts,” and right wing commentators came out of the woodwork to publicly defend outrageous corporate paychecks. “That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. In a NY Times op-ed, the CEO of Netflix called Obama’s plan a “terrible idea.”

Unsurprisingly, most Americans are appalled at that kind of hubris. NPR’s All Things Considered reported an “overwhelming response” to a similar statement made by another compensation expert. “My heart bleeds for the poor bankers,” one listener wrote in; “maybe now they’ll have to live like the rest of us, instead of spending money on gold-plated caviar and magic pony rides.” In other words, says Joe Q. Public, Don’t Be So Damn Greedy.

But if you ask me, this display of greed is a good thing. Not the greed itself, mind you. But the display of the greed. Finally, corporate capitalists are coming right out and saying it — we want more money. For ourselves. Because, well, we just want it.

Capitalism requires one of two counterweights to function. Either the capitalists themselves must have a conscience (self-regulation). Or the markets must be controlled by a higher power (government regulation). Otherwise, the capitalist will sell you the proverbial rope to hang himself.

Plenty of prominent (and ridiculously rich) capitalists have shown restraint, temperance, and even conscience. I think of Warren Buffet, who invests long-term in companies that actually create value. Or Lee Iacocca taking $1 / year salary during the Chrysler bailout. Or Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield capping their own salary at 7 times the salary of the lowest-paid Ben & Jerry’s employee. This kind of self-restraint does not lead to transformative change; but at least it tempers some of the market’s worst injustices.

What I see in these reactions to Obama’s pay cap is a complete abandonment of that restraint. Their simpleton argument — if you can’t pay your top talent top dollars, they will go elsewhere, and your business will fail — is all about personal, human greed. CEOs are not just greedy, they admit, but really really greedy; and if that greed isn’t satiated, the CEOs will walk.

That argument is, itself, an admission of guilt. If CEOs only respond to personal greed, we surely can’t let them run an unregulated economy. Greed, short-term thinking and a generous pinch of stupidity already sunk our economy. Why encourage it?

So bravo to the outspoken greedheads and corporate compensation executives who are telling it like it is. And bravo to Joe Q. Public for being pissed off about it. And bravo to Obama for proposing a sensible solution.

America is built on bigger ideals than greed. It’s built on stronger institutions than markets. Maybe this flap over Obama’s pay cap will help us all rally around our bigger selves. Otherwise, we’ll all eventually fall victim to our inner greedhead.