A good read on this subject (which shows why it falls down) is von Mises "Bureaucracy". It's probably available on the web somewhere. Also, Ronald Coase on the

A good read on this subject (which shows why it falls down) is von Mises "Bureaucracy". It's probably available on the web somewhere. Also, Ronald Coase on the Theory of the Firm. Strangely enough, economists have a lot of useful things to say about business ideas. It's all about transaction and information costs. The hassle of managing and measuring programmers in this way would outweigh the benefit of keeping them working hard.