3 ms·
Management theory was mostly invented in the 19th century on the basis that you have a bunch of smart, ambitious people (management) overseeing a bunch of dumb,
by ojbyrne 17y ago
Management theory was mostly invented in the 19th century on the basis that you have a bunch of smart, ambitious people (management) overseeing a bunch of dumb, physically more able people (labour). The weirdness is that suddenly what Marx would call "the factors of production" have to be smart. Not only that but how smart they are, rather than how strong they are, is the basis of their productivity.
Invariably, they end up being smarter than the people overseeing them, and that's the source of the weirdness.
- wheels 17y agoThere is some correlation between intelligence and skilled labor throughput, but it's definitely not a linear nor steadily increasing function. And while the managerial toss-up is an interesting historical note, it doesn't explain why people think programmers are weird, but don't have the same associations with, say, doctors.