This is a global problem that is happening to people in all professions.
It originated in part with Frederick Winslow Taylor who advocated 'deskilling', as part of his 'scientific management' program.. basically the turning of skilled tradespeople and their work into commodified standardized parts, inputs and outputs in a machine.
Another of the mental models I find works well for the current situation is that we're seeing a sort of
cult of competition. Its now become okay to set everybody everywhere against one another in a race to the bottom. Except nobody wins this race and everybody loses.
Physiological needs and safety are number one and two in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, belonging, esteem and self-actualisation are number three through five. Just settling for the first two levels is both setting an incredibly low standard and setting yourself up for an unhappy life.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice higher levels to satisfy lower ones, but forfeiting them from the get-go seems silly and entirely unnecessary. Happy employment is very attainable, especially if you don't prioritise financial gain over everything else.
if you only set yourself up for the first two you will contract whats called 'mental illness'.
Some people actually prefer living at a scarcity of the first two and having the other three fulfilled (i.e. woodsmen, self sustaining isolated farmers, etc). Pretty sure they would die if someone made em change it.
Until fairly recently people could make that choice in places like America and Western Europe and many other places, and live a happy life without being bothered. There was a sort of social contract which was unwritten but which was generally kept. that all changed however over the past few decades, based on a set of theories about the nature of promises versus 'efficiency'.
A body of theory which has a lot of problems with it.
This change went largely unnoticed but it had the effect of creating a body of new international law (so its gone without being noticed at the country level, yet it controls what countries can do) that basically says "whatever makes the most money is right" - even if every kind of promise that was made to people is broken. Its being relied upon to bring about a large scale extraction of value from resources and people of every kind. Its not going to sit back and live and let live, its on the offensive to lock down everything in the most 'efficient' way. That means that farmers everywhere are being evicted from land they have farmed for generations, it means that poor people who have legal title to their lands can be displaced simply because 'X makes more money'. And this is happening against a backdrop of changes that should be helping the world achieve a better work life balance, so its having the effect of creating a race to the bottom where everybody must work more and more for less and less.
"Law and Economics. The law and economics movement applies economic theory and method to the practice of law. ... The general theory is that law is best viewed as a social tool that promotes economic efficiency, that economic analysis and efficiency as an ideal can guide legal practice."
Its a cult, it seems to me, a cult of efficiency. it's advocates' unquestioning acceptance of its agenda has all the characteristics of a cult. It has a body of tenets which are I think logically wrong - which are going totally unquestioned. I have a feeling the word is heading into a major disaster because of these changes which are being made.
A big reason for these changes, their advocates claim is that the advent of "highly mobile global capital" has made it so businesses have to get high returns on investment "or the money will go elsewhere". Countries are using this as an excuse to gut social programs and transfer value of every kind to corporations.
For example, in health care. The rest of the world's healthcare establishments are being pushed to act like really really horrible US HMOs, that deliver really low quality medical care, and this set of facts is being hidden from them.
One wouldn't think that the definitions of what test results indicated whether somebody has a treatable condition, would change, but that is exactly what they are doing.
Basically they are rigging the system to prevent care for people who have treatable illnesses and also make it so sick people, because they make a lot of medical mistakes, have no record of their health issues. These HMOs are extremely well connected. But their profit-oriented model of healthcare delivery is totally wrong. And doctors hate it. Because they are being asked to deceive patients. (They are not allowed to discuss important health issues with patients-things that the patient may need treatment for, without the HMOs blessing)
These HMOs also are exerting pressure on lawmakers to make laws that continually push the medicolegal standards of care, which vary quite a bit by geographical area, down. You can imagine what this does to good doctors. People are paying for care, but they arent getting it. The HMOs are forcing them to attenuate their care to a sort of triage or disaster medicine where they only get the minimum and its an impossible situation. One where its understood that in this kind of environment, a lot of mistakes will inevitably be made.
Doctors absolutely hate it.
Its also the creation of artificial scarcity, in order to enhance profits.
I have two friends who I have known for decades, they used to be a couple, but now they are both married to other people. They are both doctors and - in private- they have a lot to say about these firms. They advise their friends to give them a wide berth.
Some of these HMOs make it a practice of destroying information. They intentionally deliver really low quality care for poor people. This is represented as a successful business model.
Now these kinds of practices are being pushed by lots of firms. Basically, the system is broken. But nobody is courageous enough to say it.