One book I found really interesting on this theme is "Confronting Managerialism: How the Business Elite and Their Schools Threw Our Lives Out of Balance": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A76WZ96/ Core to their point is that managers have basically become a caste. They define managerialism as "what occurs when a special group, called management, ensconces itself systemically in an organization and deprives owners and emp…
I wonder if what's missing here is a deeper dive into what MBA's actually learn in business school, if anything. Sure, they learn something. There are certain kinds of data gathering or processing tasks that I would assign to an MBA. But I've known several people who have gotten MBA's after getting advanced degrees in the sciences or engineering. They all expressed that the work was time consuming, but not intellectually demanding for someone who is basically literate and comfortable with arithmetic. Their MBA "capstone" projects were nowhere near as meaty as their MS or PhD theses. A perusal of the flagship Harvard Business Review supports this notion.
Supporting your idea, I've noted in the past (probably here in HN) that the people who value the MBA degree the most are other MBA's. The "problem" with the MBA might have nothing to do with the actual content of the degree, but the formation of an insular tribe that develops a shared language and culture with a life of its own. People of real intellectual distinction may be a minority within that tribe, thus its effect may be as simple as a dumbing down of management.
If I've noticed one intellectual trait held in common by the MBA's, it's the ability to speak in a language that avoids any mention of the human impact of their actions. A sort of learned sociopathy if you will.
"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."