My personal preference is everyone having a percentage of overall profits. Basically the payment system Captain Ahab's ship, The Pequod, used in the book Moby Dick.
With set wages, there isn't much incentive for people to work harder or smarter.
If someone is paid $7 an hour, they're paid the same whether they work hard or slack off.
There isn't much incentive for them to work in the best interests of their employer.
Being paid a percentage of overall profits could give people incentive to do their job better as their wage is tied to the overall well being of the parent organization.
MLM's tend to mirror the executive format of fortune 500 companies in some ways, which could be said to reinforce wealth and wage inequality as CEO's are often paid exponentially more than they should for the amount of work they do.
MLM's might also be said to reward seniority more than hard work, which could in turn reinforce the type of glass ceiling which prevents deserving people from being promoted past a certain point.
The way MLM's are structured isn't as fair or balanced as they could be imo.
But like I said from the beginning, this is my personal preference. I'm sure there are those who disagree & have their own views.
First of all, I would like to mention that a CEO is different from someone that is at the top of an MLM pyramid. Those that are at the top of MLM pyramid are those that joined first and recruited enough people to have enough people working under them. In a way, both the CEO and the guy at the top of MLM pyramid worked hard. The main difference is that MLM's guy at the top is determined by seniority like what you said and a CEO is voted by the board and he can be just a new guy that have made a really large impact to the company.
You said that in your idea, people will earn the same thing regardless if they work hard or if they slack off. A company that's built like that will eventually fall off. People are going to depend on those people that works hard. Once those people that work hard gets over or gets done with those that just slack off and get paid the same amount, they will start slacking off as well. Because you know, why work hard when you can just slack off. It's the other way around of what you're saying. People will not work hard because what they earn is depending on them as a whole and not as individual. People are lazy and they will depend to the hard workers and nothing else.
But of course we can just stick with the usual, you get paid what you deserve.