The Sociological Flip : What if we Earned to Learn ?

The first chain reaction was not a chemical but a sociological one..
It was probably triggered when the first human decided to trade his wheel for a spear or food or some such. Ever since that point, economic activity - which is the movement and trade of goods and services have been at the epicenter of human interactions shaping human behavior along the way. Sure, there has been religion, the perspective from knowledge,life : joy and suffering etc. - but economics comes as close to a root cause for why we get up in the morning and decide to tolerate each other over the rest of the day. 


If economic activity was a nuclear fission reaction, it received it's equivalent of particle accelerators post Adam Smith's discovery of the "The Invisible Hand of the Market" and consequently Laissez Faire Capitalism. The result has been 200 years of blinding progress in technological discoveries, medical innovation and economic governance amongst other things. 
The fallibility of the reaction has been brought to bear on us with every war, financial/economical breakdowns and natural disasters. But again at the core lies it's effect on human behavior. Vested Interests drive an increasingly polarized world. Politics trumps every morally sensible perspective and is besotted by people with a manipulative bent of mind. 
That said, It's definitely not my intent to spend a post ranting on status quo, but what I wanted to do was imagine a different spin in the scheme of things - what if the chain reaction still existed for a different reason..


At the risk of oversimplication : If we look at the constituents of the aforementioned sociological reaction closely, we would see the following -
enter life
3 years of learning to walk and talk
15 years of knowledge gathering - educating ourselves
enter the reaction (of economic activity) and churn for the next 40 years
exit the reaction - period of dormancy for 25 years
exit life
In the current 'system' - knowledge gathering is a means to an end - which in turn is an entry into the economic system and little else. 
My curiosity lies in imagining a situation wherein the economic churn was a means to another end. 
What if we could change the template slightly :
enter life
3 years of learning to walk and talk
15 years of knowledge gathering
enter the reaction (of economic activity) and churn for the next 40 years
exit the reaction - 15 years of knowledge gathering for the sake of knowledge
10 years of dormancy
exit life
This would preclude a longer life, but that appears to be given short of something cataclysmic in the near future. 
If gaining knowledge was placed at the peak of human achievement as opposed to gaining wealth, human interaction should be far more pleasant, shouldn't it ?
Think about it - The scientist is the guy to be, not the CEO. Cracking the String theory is the aspiration to have as opposed to buying the mercedes.The Ipad would be created and bought for a specific reason. Social status symbols would cease to exist. Knowledge and Wisdom would form the new materials of desire. Therefore discrimination (as we know it today) would cease to exist - no polarization, no need for politics - the theoritical possibilities should be endless. 
But there should be a flip side - 
The economics of the world would drastically be changed. It would have to be reinvented to cater for a very pragmatic consumer base with a different purpose to exist - which would be to extend the collective human knowledge of figuring out itself and the universe in which it exists. 
It would take a lot more thought to try and imagine that scenario, but a plausible effect would be a more economically slower world.
It's hard to imagine the nuances and the challenges of such a world - but I'd like to think that it as a world with both the human and the higher purpose.


I'm sure that quite a few of us have felt that if only we had that financial stability for the next 20 years, we'd probably be able to dedicate a couple of decades to figuring out/doing something for the sake of it. Maybe some of us should try and hopefully succeed. 


PS : The knowledge gathering that I speak about is not constrained to academic pursuits. It could very well include something like a travelogue resulting from touring the world. Essentially doing something with the purpose of a deeper understanding of that 'something'  as the sole purpose!