Well, the academic research paints a different picture. Here's what we know. Even within the same industries, in the same markets, there's a substantial dispersion in management practices and adherence to best practices between the best and worst firms.[1]

The firms with the best management practices have substantially higher productivity and profits than their poorly managed counterparts.[2] We also know from randomized control trials, that interventions designed to improve management practices at the organizational level have long-lasting effects on firm performance.[3]

Moreover this isn't just a case of "good management" meaning abusing employees. There's a strong positive correlation, at the firm level, between management best practices and employee satisfaction.[1]

That's a pretty strong indicator that management, at least done right, isn't just BS. That it makes a significant impact on tangible economic output. Incompetent management really is just pure inefficiency with no upside for anyone.

[1] https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.24.1.203 [2] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/122/4/1351/1850493 [3] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/128/1/1/1838606

1. Organizations need to be flatter. Too much hierarchy leads to both inefficiency and politics.

2. You can't have more than 5-8 direct reports and hope to do each of them justice, in both day-to-day operations and career growth.

I don't have the data to back this up (yet), but I suspect that the gutting of middle management disproportionately affected smaller cities and towns, and the elimination of those mid tier management jobs deprived those cities of thier elite classes.

Also, I think it argued that the costs saved from concentrating management went mostly to shareholders and executives.

The profits of this slimming have not necessarily trickled down.

Don't trivialize these points. This has been the econo-political trend for decades, and only now is the general public starting to become aware of it (thanks in no small part to Andrew Yang).

It's also the dark secret of the idealistic neoliberalism taught in undergrad economics classes, where they like to emphasize that "the pie has grown" with little regard to how said pie is distributed. Economists understand the subtlety here, but it doesn't end up in the lesson plans and kids come away with some pretty warped ideas about what economic policy.

We still haven’t seen the business world fully meet the low hanging fruit potential of excel, email, and messaging.