The concept of equal opportunity in capitalism is ridiculous. Everyone is born into a different financial situation. The wealth of your parents determines the education and opportunities you get, as well as the wealth you inherit. To make this equal, you would have to take money from the wealthy to improve public education, and you would have to take their money again and redistribute it so everyone starts out with equal investment opportunities.
Opportunity isn't that unequal in modern society. A sizeable amount of people can succeed just as well if not better than others who were raised in a better environment. I mean, sure, some people will always start with better chances than some others because of their parents' financial condition, the quality of their parenting and of the neighborhood, etc. Big corporations will always have an edge on smaller ones. But if it is possible to
overcome that, it all doesn't really matter in the end. If I have a dream, I should always have the hope to realize it and if I don't succeed, I should only have myself to blame. That doesn't mean everybody must be exactly equal - that is unrealistic and nobody would want it anyway.
I'm all for public health care and education, but there's no need to push things too far. Give everyone enough to get started, if they have more, good for them, but at least they'll have to check their back. Or let's put it this way: we want to give everybody a standing ground solid enough to allow them to take off, but we don't want to limit how high they can go because it is counter-productive to do so. And I'd rather have some people start higher than some others than have everybody start at the very bottom.
Even if this is done, some people are more talented than others. If you luck out and have a lot of basketball talent, you can make much more money than the kid who has ping pong talent. The ping pong kid can work just as hard as the basketball kid (in ping pong or basketball), but he won't make as much money. Rewarding "productivity" favors talent and financial "head starts" over hard work.
Well that's life. The more and the better you do, the more you should have in return. If you are talented, you can reach a higher potential than someone who is not as talented. It doesn't matter how hard the other person works. If you do better, you get better, or - in your example - if people value your work more, you get more. It is simple and it could not work well any other way. It sucks not to be talented, but not everybody can win at the genetic lottery.
This applies to being a supervisor as well. Is the guy that tells people to farm better than the guy that farms? One was born with management skill, the other with farming skill. Why should one be favored over the other? because it is rare? Please ask the manager if he would like to farm instead.
Of course rare skills should be favored. They are rare. If I'm the only one who can do something and that this something is valuable, I expect to get more than if everybody else can do it. Else I'll just refuse to do it and get just as much doing something easier. And everybody loses.
If they work just as hard, they should get the same amount of money. People will then choose the job they want.
He is more productive because he has more talent? Does he feel more entitled because he was born superior? If he has more talent, then I guess he can get away with not working as hard while maintaining productivity.
What kind of society would not want its members to work at the peak of their productivity? If someone is more productive, he is worth more and you give him more. If you don't, he will work just enough to be just as productive as the most mediocre worker. It becomes a mediocracy, in a sense.
