[bumby]

>they give up just as much time to be there for an hour as the CEO does.

I think this misunderstands a fundamental economic idea: people aren’t paid commensurate to their time or sweat invested; they are paid (in theory) with their differential contribution to the economy. Therefore, people who get paid well tend to have at least two things: 1) a rare skill and 2) a relatively high contribution to the economy. Sometimes those are correlated with effort and time, but they don’t have to be.

[praptak]

Isn't this a circular explanation? You are paid for your contribution to the economy. What is your contribution to the economy? Well, it is the amount you are paid.

[bumby]

Not necessarily. Just because they are (somewhat) proportional does not mean they are equal, or even easy to measure. Clergy, for example, don’t usually contribute much to the economy in raw terms, but they are paid because of what they add to the quality of someone’s life.

[natmaka]

In theory the more difficult to replace you are, the more you are paid.