If you pay peanuts, you will only get monkeys. What if we offer plums, dates etc.?

My professor repeatedly say this hackneyed thing "if you pay peanuts, you will only get monkeys". Like in so many other pearls of traditional wisdom, this aphorism raises some very interesting and fundamental questions: for example, why do we denigrate monkeys so as if they were the least competent animals in the universe, especially bearing in mind the genealogical linkages the modern day humans have with that species? Granting for the moment that monkeys are indeed an inefficient and ineffective lot, how can we be sure that peanuts attract only monkeys and not some other more evolved animals? Third, what is the surety that we will attract more talented animals if we were to offer say plums instead of peanuts? And then, too, how many plums are too many? Or for that matter, who should decide the right choice of peanuts or plums or a mix that a given situation demands? Is it the same scenario with the Indian Corporate Sector in regard to levels of CEO & Executive Directors compensation? Who can judge this rightly? Is their any solution?........I hope some "Cool" law can tame all these "MONey KEYS" if not "highly evolved" animals by offering a right proportion of nuts, plums etc,.