Ruskin's response to "Nay, but finally, work must be done, and some one must be at the top, some one at the bottom.":

Granted my friends. Work must always be, and captains of work must always be [...]. But I beg you to observe that there is a wide difference between being captains or governors of work, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you are general of an army, that you are to take all the treasure, or land, it wins; [...] neither, because you are king of a nation, that you are to consume all the profits of the nation's work. Real kings, on the contrary are known invariably by their doing quite the reverse of this,--by their taking the least possible quantity of the nation's work for themselves. There is no test of real kinghood so infallible as that. Does the crowned creature live simply, bravely, unostentatiously? probably he is a King. Does he cover his body with jewels, and his table with delicates? in all probability he is not a King. It is possible he may be, as Solomon was; but that is when the nation shares his splendour with him. Solomon made gold, not only to be in his own palace as stones, but to be in Jerusalem as stones. But, even so, for the most part these splendid kinghoods expire in ruin, and only the true kinghoods live, which are of royal labourers governing loyal labourers; who, both leading rough lives, establish true dynasties. Conclusively you will find that because you are king of a nation, it does not follow that you are to gather for yourself all the wealth of that nation; neither, because you are king of a small part of the nation, and lord over the means of its maintenance--over field, or mill, or mine,--are you to take all the produce of that piece of the foundation of national existence for yourself.