To put your Fordist and Neoliberal in
End Times
Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration
terms there is either more or less wealth pump and corresponding elite iron rule.
Which is again to say that the degree of Capitalism matters. Even in a world where there is no wage labour at all, elites can still exert more or less control on our daily lives.
Imagine I want to volunteer as a mathematician but the mathematicians don't think I'm good enough at math and I end up volunteering in the garden instead. No wages, no forced labour and yet I could still be under elite thumbs.
So while I think your concern about not settling for intermediate results is valid, ultimately all results are intermediate and we just have to get used to always trying to do better.