So Zig Forums, I've had a thought for a while now - what if there were a system that required each and every citizen to have had around 4 years (or at least 4 years' worth of credit) of some form of mandatory service? Every nation that has been successful has had a draft, and they usually begin to crumble when the number of drafted go down, or is removed completely. While I don't think military service is the only form of good service out there, it says something about the strength of such a mandate when every country that removes it goes down the shitter.
I'd go so far as to say you could easily expand what constitutes as "service" and get a similar (if not the same) result of national unification. These would ideally all revolve around helping and servicing your communities, your cities, and your country. Services such as
Incidentally, all of these services are treated like absolute bottom-of-the-barrel garbage and pay like shit. Contrast this with shit like retail management, anything sports related, insurance, sales, etc - all of them are extremely fucking easy jobs that contribute very little to society, yet are often considered middle class and "the norm".
Basically, if you require people to serve in some form of community service (and no, I don't mean "pick up trash on the side of the road" community service) in order to be citizens, you'd have a great way to filter out bottom-feeding peasants right off the bat.