askchapo

This brings Bullshit Jobs to mind.

I don't think there's any way for workers to sabotage the middle management and capitalist relations though, because as the book also mentions, middle management is not only there to help capitalists with their metrics and optimization of labour. It's also there to legitimize and make the owners look good, to act as a protective buffer against the workers by playing a kind of "good cop / on your side" role, and to create enough labour aristocracy so the organizing workers don't reach a critical mass.

Modern office jobs, unlike the factories, give you a much closer person above you, with a much smaller class difference, sometimes even doing work themselves, that is responsible to not only keep you in line and performant, but to also "help" you improve every evaluation period. Workers are much more likely to lick the boot when they feel like a manager will notice them and appreciate them, and when they have a certain list of improvement areas to constantly improve on hoping to get that annual raise.

I think that as long as they can still be profitable enough to keep middle managers happy and complacent, they are never going to break that relationship.