I’m confused as to how a prize to the highest performer is undignified. This is precisely the model they want to encourage. It’s not literally a single prize, but there are multiple prizes.

Imagine the olympics where there is no gold, silver, bronze. Is it undignified to award the highest performers?

A method that awarded everyone would not lead to productivity gains desired since it skips the competition and motivation. This only applies to manual labor and not to many other careers.

Competition is not undignified or wrong if it is fair and structured properly.

Overworking is optional. It’s something I used to be into when I was young, but not now.

It’s tyrannical if all weee forced to work harder, even if age prevented it.