What other term do you expect managers to use for that? "People and stuff?" Or each role filled by a human separately, "programmers, testers, designers and inanimate objects"?
For a profession obsessed with accurately and consistently naming things, we seem to be a bit over-sensitive when the "domain objects" include us...
It's hard to think of people like resources in a profession where the actual number of them doesn't matter very much.
This isn't like moving a large box where you need exactly the right number of people to hold all the corners and pretty much anyone can take any corner. Instead, you want to be tracking what people know (their proficiencies, such as languages) and how good they are (their efficiencies, such as how many years experience and their track records in past projects that required the same skill). Proficiencies and efficiencies are your programming resources, not the actual people.
There are programming projects where one excellent person could shoulder the whole thing, and 10 newbies could ruin it. There are experienced people who simply have the wrong experience to be effective in a certain situation. Having some programmers "free" to work on something isn't really relevant, they have to be the right programmers.
Programming as such is more like an art than an engineering discipline. Writing a complex application is more like writing a novel. Try adding authors to a late or failing novel and see what happens.
Besides, I thought that the whole programmers as resources thing was debunked in the mythical man month book.
I blame all of this on the "software engineering" movement. The discipline, if used properly, is fine. But calling people resources seem to me like skipping over the important points of the discipline and focusing on the wrong things.
Meanwhile, "the economy" is ascribed human attributes, as if it were a person. Consider phrases like "stimulate the economy" and "the health of the economy". (In case there's any confusion, the economy is not a person. It's an abstract concept.)
Seriously, I have no problem with this. More then that, I would really really like to hear more management called this way. It should be much more ingrained in the culture that management, even more than programmers, is a "resource", and exists to provide services to the working class and to make its life easier.
For entrepreneurs it's not an unusual mindset to think that the owner is the one who empties the wastebasket, but I very much doubt this is common in the corporate world. It should be, not because emptying wastebaskets is a worthwhile thing to do, but because it encourages the ideology that management is there to pave the way between the people who work and what they have to do.
However, it makes you realize you are only a "resource" and you can be replaced by a different or multiple "resource" if you quit or if needed.
As long as you're not singling out the programmers as a resource I dont see the problem.
I find that the crippling bureaucracy usually starts when you start referring to your programmers, that did the actual work, as resources.
Programmers are not trade-able and people are not sheep.
The fact that programmers are tradeable is good for programmers, because it creates more demand for programmers.
While it's true that "resouce" doesn't imply something non-living, it also doesn't imply something living. Why not use more human, personal language to describe people?
E.g.: "I need to send my developers to security training".
But sometimes it could be beneficial to think in terms of "resources".
For example, in order to deliver the project you need some resources. That could be internal developers, contractors, or 3rd-party solution that delivers required functionality.
It may be easier to compare potential choices against each other and make business decision when you think in terms of "resource".