An excellent parable, KAEP.
The problem is that the people are so used to the blood-sucking leeches, they think that's the way it's "meant" to be and couldn't be any other way. No one bats an eyelid at the appalling disparities at large in the world, which have "no" justification.
Humans are remarkable at accommodating themselves to prevailing conditions, and once living memory is disposed of the new reality, born into, is hypostasised. Ideologies and traditions are even woven around the prevailing conditions--such as that "life wasn't 'meant' to be easy"--to provide rationalisation and "some" comfort during the "leaching" (of life force) process. Though the more important function of these institutions is to preserve ideal conditions for leeches. It's not even only those they suck on who suffer now, the whole environment is becoming unstable thanks to their unslakable appetites.
I used to work in a factory that employed both sexes. It was sexist and the women had the lowliest jobs; one in particular was so trying that many new workers quit before a week was out. The job was used to sort chaff from corn for years; once the worker stood it for a couple of months, she'd be moved to something easier. It never ceased to amaze me how many of these women would "ask" to remain where they were rather than be moved! Better the evil you know, seemed the logic.
And this human virtue (forbearance) is the greatest obstacle to reform. In all my years in factories, I constantly witnessed the best being made of a bad lot (and often the worst of a good lot). Human beings adapt. That's what they appear programmed to do by default. Yet they are also creative and innovative and capable of great things given the chance. But that capacity is precisely the life-force that is sucked-out by capitalism and converted into profit--not into a better, "more human", life (consumption for its own sake doesn't count). In return the worker gets what is mockingly called "a living": subsistence and a scripted life--if you're one of the lucky ones!

*No one bats an eyelid at the appalling disparities at large in the world, which have "no" justification.*

Squeers, your idealism is touching, but hardly realistic. Nature is
not fair, life is not fair, genetic distribution is not fair, get
used to it. All the idealism in the world won't fix that.

*Yet they are also creative and innovative and capable of great things given the chance.*

Absolutaly. So main thing is that we have a system where those who
want that chance, are given that chance. That we have. Others are
simply not interested. They are quite content with the way things
are. You make the fatal flaw of seeing the world only through your
perception, not others perception.

In my last business, I employed a bunch of women who had to do what
can only be called boring and repetitive work, for just average pay.
Yet they loved coming to work. Why? Because they were all friends,
all women, and could talk about all those things that a bunch of women
want to talk about. Mixing a male in there, would have ruined it for
them. I used to let them decide who we hired, if somebody left.
That way they all got on great. When I once ignored that rule, it
was disaster.

The point is some people are quite content with their life. They
focus on their family, their kids, their friends, their footy team,
etc. To suggest that they should be miserable, because somebody earns
more somewhere, is clearly wrong.

You clearly have a problem with it, others don't. Not everyone sees
the world from your perspective.

Yabby you completely miss the point.
Creativity is drawn-off as profit. Human ingenuity is converted, literally, into commodified use and exchange values. That is, what humans would naturally be doing from exigency, or optimally from their own creative/aesthetic sense, is converted into a dollar-value plus profit. Thus creativity is exploited and compromised from the start, never attaining its potential.
Where you make your mistake, Yabby, is you judge everything by the prevailing context, as if it formed an immutable backdrop.
You say: <Yet they loved coming to work. Why? Because they were all friends, all women, and could talk about all those things that a bunch of women want to talk about>
Isn't this precisely what I was admiring (and bemoaning) about humanity above; that capacity to accommodate itself to the prevailing conditions? You surely don't see that capacity as an endorsement of the system you celebrate? Inmates in maximum-security prisons will find means to enjoy life, just as animals in zoos will in most cases breed; is that then an endorsement of incarceration? Is not the fact that 20% of us, in any one year, suffers a mental "illness" rather damning?
The problem is that we accommodate ourselves just as readily to unconscionable conditions, wherein we mutely gloat at the other half.
Read Blake's Songs of Innocence, and Of Experience, and how the moneyed classes blithely hired chimney-sweeps to get stuck and die in their filthy flues, or exploited child labour in a host of other unspeakable ways, or turned their backs as we do on human wretchedness and misery.

*Human ingenuity is converted, literally, into commodified use and exchange values.*

Err so what? It means that we can use those exchange values, to
finance continuing human ingenuity. Having dreams is not enough
Squeers, it takes other resources to make them happen. Our system
allows for that. Literally anyone can do it.

*Isn't this precisely what I was admiring (and bemoaning) about humanity above*

Squeers, if they are happy, then why should anyone bemoan it?
Your incarcerated example is quite different. Those people are stuck
where they are, without choice. You Squeers, are free to put on
your old hippy gear, head for Nimbin, set up your Tipi and contemplate
life. Our system will feed you, clothe you and pay for your medical
bills. You are hardly unfree.

* Is not the fact that 20% of us, in any one year, suffers a mental "illness" rather damning?*

Nope. It says that some of us suffer from mental illness. Others
of us make bad choices in life, from choosing the wrong occupation
to marrying the wrong partner. When the stress gets too much, we
need help.

Wesfarmers have sold out and gone broke though havent they Yabby? Or perhaps they are on the way out? I was told this only a couple of months ago. Or was it Elders?

*Wesfarmers have sold out and gone broke though havent they Yabby?*

Not so, Unique. Clearly finance is not your strong point :)

Wesfarmers today are Australia's 8th largest company, capitalised
at 36 billion $, with hundreds of thousands of employees and
hundreds of thousands of shareholders. Most super funds would
have a stake in them too.

Much of their growth, from a simple farmers coop, to a mega company,
was due to the efforts of Michael Chaney, CEO for a long time.There
is many a farmer in WA, who has been rescued financially, by those
Wesfarmers shares, left in the bottom drawer for years.

Michael was well paid, but he deserved every cent.

You are perhaps thinking of Elders. Yes, they have a few problems.