The system is exactly backward. We should start by paying every person to be useful to their place. If they are more useful to a place by becoming a leader or educated professional, then that process should be designed in a way that supports the people who are making their places better. What we have now is simply competitive extractive uselessness based on "pursuit of happiness" that can't exist very long. Civilization itself is an evolutionary trap: creating too much opportunity for consumption of resources without feedback proportional to future needs of those resources.