I sure hope it never comes to this, but I suppose it might. The government decides that the occupational code for "mason" is especially meritorious and income will be taxed at 5%, while "litigator" is less meritorious and income from this activity should be taxed at 35%.
Maybe we can agree on
"Surely not a view shared by the other, less well compensated 80% of the population."
We may disagree on the value society does or should place on an activity and an individual's particular performance of this activity, but "compensation," which takes into account all aspects of supply and demand, is the final cold metric, all boiled down to one number. How lucky you are, how hard you work, how talented you are, how rare your skill is, how much people are willing to pay for your services--it's all there, mixed together, in that single number. Beautiful, simple, and arrived at by mutual agreement between the individual and the rest of the world.
+1 Isn't there a saying, "Don't confuse effort for work?". The guy pounding nails into 2x4's may have worked hard all day, but the value, as evidenced by the price paid for his labor, is less than that of the Doctor who saw patients all day. Any alternative to letting the market decide the value of labor is fraught with peril and potential for perversion/corruption.