Tricky but valid question. My school of thought is a little different though I'm a programmer myself. In the IT field, we have many positions ranging from devs to BA's to PM's to QA's. Each role has a set of tasks to perform in order to deliver the product. And each role gets paid by virtue of its importance. Yes, they all have to go hand in hand. BA's role is important since they understand the specifics of the domain and help the customer to come out with detailed requirements. Programmers convert these requirement into reality. Managers look at the bigger picture and ensure that we are shielded from the day to day management related activities which are important from the higher management perspective. QA's ofcourse ensure that a quality product reaches the customer.

In all this, you can see that we cannot debate who is more important or who does more work. Its just roles that different people need to play.

Also remember that as you grow in an organization, you'll slowly transition from a programmer to a lead dev and so on. This will make you almost equally paid or better paid than a manager. A Programmer is considered as an individual contributor where as a dev lead is managing a team of programmers.

Another hypothetical thought (apologize if my data is incorrect): Have we thought why an eye surgeon gets lesser paid than a say ..orthopedic surgeon? All are important parts of the body to us right?

But at the end of the day, we still do what we do coz we love it!! I love getting to work every day and churning out some whacky lines of code!