If that's a good reason to keep pay low, why don't we apply this to the management and administrative class? Surely, we could find someone smart and capable who'd be happy to do an exec's or a director's job, without seven-figure pay as a consideration...
Think of all the money we could return to shareholders, if we just made the directors subsist on prayers and ramen...
We do, depending on domain. Directors in a lot of social programs make low pay for what they deal with. Luckily, many are mission oriented rather than being motivated primarily by money.