Comment by vundercind
Comment by vundercind 10 months ago
I think workers in prior generations (largely Silent and early Boomer) told us exactly what deviance was becoming normalized starting in the 70s through the 90s: managers who’d only ever managed, and don’t much care what they’re managing. MBAs and finance majors replacing the people who might not have any degree but did know what actual labor the company did and how the productive (not spreadsheets) side of the business functions, because they had personally done some of it for years.
They’re still around to ask about this stuff.
I think cutting way back on antitrust enforcement starting in the mid 70s accelerated the shift (that part, you may or may not hear from the older workers who watched this happening—though I bet their stories include some M&A activity as inflection points)
That makes a lot of sense to me. I certainly have opinions on what it's like when people without software experience try to manage software projects. And the better I get about making software, the more respect I have for other people's crafts.
And I think I'd add to that the concept of "business class", the notion that executives are a special caste who deserve to rule over the lessers. Who not only can but should treat with contempt the people who do the work, who hold the knowledge.
There's another related component to me, what Mary Poppendieck called "The Tyrrany of The Plan". There's a notion that if you have a sufficiently good plan, anybody can execute it and you should get a perfect result. The extent to which that almost never works rarely diminishes faith in the creed. My long experience is that for anything worthwhile, a plan only takes you so far; you need expertise to adapt to changing circumstances, to learn along the way. But belief in The Plan fits in well with a managerial upper caste, because it lets them take credit for the successes and blame others for the failures.
If you haven't read it, you might enjoy Locke and Spender's "Confronting Managerialism".