That is a perfectly reasonable sentiment. It is the essence of a specialization economy. Skills that bring more value to the market can take away more resources from it. From each according to ability; to each according to the best deal they could negotiate in exchange for their abilities.
One can state a fact without making it into a brag. Saying, "I get paid more than you" is not the same as saying, "I am a better person than you", despite the culture that the rich prefer to cultivate that equates the two. A person that gets paid $15/hour is the same amount of person as someone paid $100k/year. The latter is "more valuable" only in the economic, marketplace sense, and gets roughly 3x the resources for the same amount of labor, which likely does not involve work that requires separating ass from chair.
If you don't pay people more to acquire the difficult skills, they won't bother, except in rare cases.
One can state a fact without making it into a brag. Saying, "I get paid more than you" is not the same as saying, "I am a better person than you", despite the culture that the rich prefer to cultivate that equates the two. A person that gets paid $15/hour is the same amount of person as someone paid $100k/year. The latter is "more valuable" only in the economic, marketplace sense, and gets roughly 3x the resources for the same amount of labor, which likely does not involve work that requires separating ass from chair.
If you don't pay people more to acquire the difficult skills, they won't bother, except in rare cases.