I think there are examples of what you're saying. I remember reading in "The Emperor Of All Maladies", by Siddharta Mukherjee, about experimental chemotherapy treatments that initially only extended the patient's life by 6-12 months. Later, as science advanced, combining these with new therapies greatly increased the survival rate.
But in the end, it is an individual choice. There will always be some who choose to fight no matter what (and they should be aware of their chances) and there will be others who prefer to let go.
There are examples of this sort of cooperation to survive in primitive human societies. Inuit Eskimos will share their game with the whole village. No one is allowed to starve, even if they don't participate in hunts (they are despised and looked down upon though).
I would assume the same practice were true for most hunter-gatherer societies. But one aspect that led to this "wealth" sharing is the fact that in primitive societies people living in the same community were closely genetically related.
Matt Ridley touches tangentially on this topic in his book "The Origins of Virtue".
What I don't understand is why you are trying to compare programmers with doctors and lawyers. Why not choose fields that are more closely related and let's see how the average software developer is doing vs. those working in those fields?
For example, let's say, electronics engineer - I would hazard to say that the average software developer is earning higher than the average circuit designer.
Sure, you are saying that software is pervasive in our lives and extremly important - but all software runs on some hardware, which was designed by an electronics engineer.
Engineering and science related careers have never been amongst the top paid jobs in the society we live in - and you could argue for many engineering fields that they are amongst the most important jobs in our current economy (be it construction engineers, automotive, aerospace engineering, energy production, whatever). I don't really see why programmers should earn much more than people working in these fields.
But in the end, it is an individual choice. There will always be some who choose to fight no matter what (and they should be aware of their chances) and there will be others who prefer to let go.