How do we assign value to a person in modern Western society?

There are no guarantees in reality. What we have is a situation that allows people that know how to take advantage of things better than others. That is reality and wont change in that no two people value the same reality the same all the time and there will be many who know not how to take advantage and benefit from the current reality and there will be those who are not able to do this and need help from those who can. But even then we make mistakes and do not distribute all things evenly. That won't change and must be taken into account in every effort we make to make things better.