Those with less than average capability do not lack a place in society.
And indeed in the past, there is NO SHAME of being poor, you can still live a dignified life. One has one's own self-respect, and one's own beliefs. Nowadays, 'self-respect' is more of how you view what others think of you.
But those 1% in your post choose to fall out of our current society. Or do I read your post wrong?
Traditionally, “a place in society” meant that people filled a productive niche that helped keep society functioning. Even those of very low intelligence had work available for them that they could handle. In fact, in the past there was more work available for those of low intelligence, so much so that much of it was done by those of higher intelligence. It was the jobs specifically requiring high intelligence that were limited in number.
The “hewers of wood and drawers of water” another poster mentioned, if you will. How much demand is there for these people in today’s economy? And it’s dropping all the time.
Even jobs these lower intelligence people could perform are being moved out of their reach. For instance, 100 years ago such a person could start and run a reasonably successful small business, perhaps a small candy store. Today the requirements for running any small business keep him out. Even for something as simple as lawn care, the government requires compliance with massive amounts of regulation that complicate the process so much that a lower-intelligence person can’t do it.
So we can have make-work jobs, and we can pay people to sit around. But we will know, and they will know, that they aren’t really providing anything to society economically. And I think that is demoralizing. It has been described as a modern version of the Indian reservation, where people with no value to society are warehoused.
I’m not saying this well. Highly recommend reading The Bell Curve, where they state it very nicely.
BTW, I hope you realize I’m saying these people and others will often view them as being of no value. I disagree, because I think the value of a human life is based on much more important factors than economics and relative status. But in our society I think anyone must admit that the primary factor in most people’s judgment of others is economic factors.