FWIW, the prizes closer to the top are neurotic sons and daughters of legacy post-Colonial industrial screw ups around constant crises manufactured on high. I enjoy "high culture" locally fed city living, but white flight we inherited relegates that to "society luxury" or even "tourist" status in most cities. Receptive folks who like our subsidized outdoors, cars, TV, booze and factory food seem happiest here. I can't change that.
"Servitude" for good operations in good ecosystems with good outcomes is better than fine. The "in charge" positional goods are rare by definition. But rot at our tops and even collusion in industrial felonies (Enron? Wells Fargo?...) is mostly preordained by an accidental empire in decline.
The Santa Fe Institute folks narrate our history and recent dog-eat-dog challenges pretty credibly at different comparative and resource accounting resolutions. Fixing our very specific post-WW2 population Boom and short lived apartheid empire is not possible by grand gesture. Culture, know how, will, patience and trust do not grow on trees. Even trees grow slowly. Interesting times to be a human and learn how we got here.