You raise an interesting point on 'work'. The value of work is increasingly less atomic in context of a knowledge economy. Ideas, research, art, sports--these a

You raise an interesting point on 'work'. The value of work is increasingly less atomic in context of a knowledge economy. Ideas, research, art, sports--these are typically either completely ignored or wildly successful. Marginal differences in 'work' and effort are inconsequential. This is unfortunate because like you've noted, many skilled people will never get what they deserve in winner take all markets on the off chance their choices do not work out. The incremental differences between the top 0.01% and 0.02% are negligible but often lead to disparate rewards. I disagree with your arguments that we lack a system for competition. Markets do (did) a pretty job of deciding whether an idea or invention is truly valuable. The problem is that most markets are relatively zero-sum, and people are dictated by myopic concerns like bills, quarterly earnings, etc. What this means is that ideas tend to cluster along similar branches as players react to one another rather than engaging in truly 'free-form' exploration of ideas. Basic income will help in this respect, however for every ambitious dreamer there is a gluttonous, entitled individual who blows his money on himself and contributes very little. Coming from a econ/finance background, I can tell you that people can be very selfish in contrast to the comparatively idealistic tech and research community. Unfortunately, current economic systems are obsessed with the stability of quantifiable targets such as inflation, unemployment, etc; i.e. we have a system that promotes incremental growth rather than a system that is more likely to experience creativity/innovation shocks.