What makes you think that intellectuals know better than your average worker or engineer what is productive and what is not? The workers, engineers, and managers are doing the actual production, and intellectuals by and large don't know shit about it. I've fixed commodes for PhDs who didn't have a clue how a toilet functioned mechanically after using one thousands and thousands of times. There's two moving parts! I can't think of one living intellectual I'd like to see running anything larger than a hot dog cart. Managing a productive job isn't like teaching a classroom full of hungover college students or speaking at a seminar.

If an intellectual had the resources at their disposal to actually accomplish some big goal, they could set one, but if they want the government to come up with the resources they can run for office just like the knuckleheads we already have.