I can only speak for my own response. I retract the a-hole comment as ungenerous and unproductive. I certainly don't think you are a "bad person" on the basis of a contemptuous-sounding comment.

I think part of the argument here, at least my own, is that for both of your hypothetical hole-digger and COVID vaccine scientist, neither get the value of their work--rather an ever-growing portion of it flows upward to the increasingly disparate wealthy class of executives and financial services players. Pure capitalism is a callous system, and there are plenty of economists who make that argument far better than I can. The question is then rather about what change/safeguards are appropriate checks to it. Many of us, the author perhaps included, speculate that the current system has broken down in key areas (mortgage backed securities and global recession, anyone?), and wonder what changes can and should be made to improve it.