I just finished reading the all of Hackers and Painters after getting a cheap ebook from O Reilly. I wondered if there is any criticism of some of the economic

I just finished reading the all of Hackers and Painters after getting a cheap ebook from O Reilly. I wondered if there is any criticism of some of the economic theory ones? Specifically the one that follows this one in the book, Mind the Gap. (It says essentially that economic disparity isn't necessarily bad for society) I don't have the background in economics or history to know if his examples are sound or not, but the part of me that tends towards more liberal values finds some of the arguments a bit repellent. Somehow, it seems to me that using the fact that "in ancient Rome the price of slaves varied by a factor of 50 depending on their skills" to help justify CEOs and baseball players high salaries is probably inherently flawed. While reading it on the subway on my Android phone in epub format, the footnotes were broken, but I had hoped that the footnote attached this tidbit was some qualifying statement about why slavery isn't necessarily the best model to use when thinking about the worth of people today, but I was disappointed to find that the note was just more details on the economics of slavery and a reference, and seems to miss completely how flawed that line of thinking might be. Is there anyone who is more economically educated who knows of some criticism of these essays? I know this probably sounds like someone who has had their beliefs questioned and wants to re-affirm them, and of course that's part of it. But I also remember reading the blog post "Dabblers and Blowhards" which picked apart PG's ideas about painting based on some (possibly) mistaken ideas about that history... so I'm suspicious. Ultimately I would like to learn more about economic theory like this, so I'm looking for "criticism" in the sense of thoughtful discussions and response, not necessarily outright disagreement. And thanks!