The whole system of education is designed to channel this type of behavior from early childhood.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big proponent of high quality public education; it's a necessity. But the reason we have it is because businesses and corporations need workers.
You can graduate from high school and leave your hometown, but the attitudes of high school remain in the office: the cliques, the cruelty, the in-groups and out-groups, the manipulation, the brown-nosing, the behind-the-back-shit-talking. The C students from your high school are now mid level managers above you and brought the mentality straight from there to the office.
if I assume that the system is a neutral emergent phenomenon, i'd say it values "skills" required by businesses because these are strong indicator of what ensures survival of the group (we might all study cosmology and get hawking IQ level in the end, if we don't know how to grow food, we're toast)
that said i'm curious if there are cities or groups who reduce the importance of material economy / business and promote real deep and beautiful learning
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big proponent of high quality public education; it's a necessity. But the reason we have it is because businesses and corporations need workers.