The deadening effect...............................

 

..............................of managerialism:

Managerialism is a form of political economy in which the middle-man steps in with a claim that he has some special competence, through the exercise of which new efficiencies can be realized, or some process of production or distribution can be optimized through quantitative rigor. But a funny thing then happens. His metrics easily come detached from the underlying things they are meant to track, no doubt because the incentives of the manager are tied to metrics, rather than directly to the thing. The latter orientation is characteristic of the craftsman, via the “internal rewards” and satisfactions that are intrinsic to some skilled practice (such as making good television), as opposed to the “external rewards” of money, or social position, or other goods that may be a second-order consequence of getting to be really good at something. But you can’t get good at something while focused on external rewards. You have to go deep into the practice itself.

-Matthew B. Crawford