There is if you are an executive that is privy to non-public information.

That's insider trading, and a whole different accusation than the one levied above, which is implying some sort of wealth inequality issue that executives are compensated in stocks and non-executives are compensated in cash.

My point is that if you have non-public information, you can’t actually sell the shares for cash whenever you wish, so it’s not the same thing.

>you can’t actually sell the shares for cash whenever you wish, so it’s not the same thing.

I guess it's true that you can't sell "whenever you wish", but if you set up a rule 10b5-1 plan your shares are effectively as good as cash.