I had this exact thought while walking to work this morning.

It came to me that the vast majority of modern society is completely independent of the actual people executing it. There are very few jobs that could not be done just as well by another person with the same training.

Most jobs are like coded modules. They have well-defined inputs and outputs - even creative jobs can be defined in terms of "create something people will pay for".

The system is what runs the world, not the individual people who carry it out.