Some wise economists have shown (as far as I can tell) that high CEO salaries don't make the CEOs work harder or reward what they do as CEOs. They reward hard work and luck when the person was not yet a CEO.

In short, they are an incentive for the workers who aspire to be a CEO. In this sense, they are inspiration for others rather than pay for the CEOs.

Yes, certainly, there is a market for CEOs. The few that are chosen to make that leap get hugely rewarded - they are rare people indeed to make that cut and move to the top offices.

The system isn't less 'fair' than it was - back when you had to be the boss' son to make that leap. Actually, perhaps it works better. It inspires more people to aspire. That 2 million a year + 7.5 million parachute in case I fail? That could be mine, if I just work hard enough to enter the promised land... so think 600 mid-level execs who work their tails off, cross their fingers and pray. And the board hopes that this draft pick they are hiring works out and their stock goes up.

Yes, they tend to reward 'each other.' They all are in the promised land and want to make it as appealing as possible. But lots of people can get there.

Is there a class divide? Yes - but the pool of people who can make the jump to the upper reaches of the filthy rich is pretty large, these days, compared to in the past. The aspiration is for the few highly educated professionals and middle management - to which the children of the blue collar and white collar can apsire. Ok, so it takes 2-3 generations to move from fairly poor to filthy rich. That's still pretty good, in historical perspective.

This takes quite a bit out of the moral sting of CEO salaries, which are certainly unfair and ridiculous as payment for services rendered during a tenure as a successful - or especially unsuccessful - CEO.