How exactly is that a strawman argument?
When people villianize the rich they are implicitly saying that the rich somehow became rich from illgotten ways. YOU may not believe that but I've spoken to many people over the years who believe that wealthy people almost always do shady things to get that way.
The whole point of having the superintendent make $80k and the kitchen worker making $12k is to create an incentive for people to try to gain the skills to be more than a kitchen worker. Because, as a society, the more skills we have, the more opportuniteis we create for ourselves AND others.
That kitchen worker isn't very likely to be creating any new jobs. The superintendent, by contrast, by his function, creates jobs. As a society, we need people who create wealth (one way or the other). Public employees (like superintendents) aren't very good examples because they're not really subject to market forces like the private sector typically is. But it's the same general thing. We need people to create wealth. Either by creating jobs, inventing new things, or creating new opportunities.
As we sit back in our air conditioned houses running our personal computers running all kidns of various software talking over a cable modem or whatever via the Internet, those thigns were created by people who had amassed valuable skills. And material benefit is a great motivator to get people to aquire those skills. Skills that, ultimately, we all benefit from. Even the kitchen worker.
