I disagree with your view. Life is not an ego fest of who will gain more than the rest and "level up". Life is for enjoying it. If there are levels, however, they would not be associated with monetary gains or intelligence, but with enlightenment, consciousness levels.
The way you put it is too Ego involved and that is a model we want to get rid of (I think). The reason we want to get rid of it, is because it creates a lot of suffering, a lot of unfulfilled desires and at the end of one's life he asks himself "While I've been doing all this time, I forgot to just be." An enlightened and poor money-wise person, lives more fully and fulfills his life purpose (to live) more fully than a rich businessmen that has it all in the world of form, but has not learned how to be and therefore does not appreciate life at it's fullest.