Switch "salaries" for "compensation", then. If the idea is that risk-taking is inherently useful and therefore deserving of constant income, it must be shown why that risk is compensated in some cases (investors, CEOs) but not in others (employees).
The argument was as follows:
* People who do nothing useful gain high compensation (Debs).
* Acutally, the high compensation is due to taking on "all the risk"
* But employees also take on a large amount of personal risk which is not compensated.
* Ah, but the kind of risk being discussed isn't personal risk, it's financial risk.
* But this means that when constructing an argument for high compensation, financial risk is prized and personal risk is not. Why?
The fact that investors don't take salaries is irrelevant to the discussion. The justification for their profit is still "financial risk" without regard for "personal risk".
Stock appreciation isn't really "compensation". When Bezos for example gets billions of dollars richer, that's an artificial number from multiplying a NASDAQ price by his holdings - there's no actual flow of billions of dollars which could be redirected to employee salaries. The only way for employees to get a piece of the pie would be to give them stock. And most large companies do try to give their employees stock; even Walmart part-timers have an ESPP.
The argument was as follows:
* People who do nothing useful gain high compensation (Debs).
* Acutally, the high compensation is due to taking on "all the risk"
* But employees also take on a large amount of personal risk which is not compensated.
* Ah, but the kind of risk being discussed isn't personal risk, it's financial risk.
* But this means that when constructing an argument for high compensation, financial risk is prized and personal risk is not. Why?
The fact that investors don't take salaries is irrelevant to the discussion. The justification for their profit is still "financial risk" without regard for "personal risk".