The problem with this sort of thinking is that there needs to be a rat race of some sorts, otherwise how will we determine who gets what jobs?<p>Let's say we wipe the slate clean.<p>Universities are abolished, and after high school your grades are tallied and people seek out employment. If you slacked off during high school, well, have fun stocking shelves for the rest of your life. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You just don't have a choice because the rat race has been abolished! Huzzah!<p>Well, some people are fed up with stocking shelves and realize they made a huge mistake in high school. They desperately want to better themselves, so they begin thinking of ways to advertise their actual worth to employers.<p>Many of them realize that even though Universities have been abolished, they can still read textbooks on their own and teach themselves. So many of them do that, thinking they'll impress employers with their knowledge and appear desirable.<p>The employers say ok, prove to us that you're knowledgeable. Candidates tell them about all the textbooks they read. Employers say that's all well and good, but how do we know you're not lying?<p>The candidates leave dejected, but then realize if they only had a collection of domain experts to grade them on what they knew, they could then take those grades to the employers as proof of their intelligence!<p>The domain experts, who themselves are gainfully employed, say that they will administer the tests and help out with conceptual understanding on one condition: that they get paid, because hey, they need to make a living. Ok! Say the eager students....<p>See where this is going?<p>The rat race is an inherent feature of a free society. It can't be removed. If you try to abolish it in one form it will appear in some other form. Superficially the features of the rat race may be different but ultimately it will still be a rat race.