Business epistemology is not about knowing Truth, it is about knowing currently useful information and practices, and it is expensive to validate or generate this knowledge.

Hence we get the same thing over and over again until someone convinces people there is a better way, or simply does something different and makes more money.

Now don't go blaming capitalism. It's the software engineers tendency to always be on the lookout for the silver bullet that will fix one of the currently broken things so it doesn't hurt so much that drives this endless performance theater.

In this environment there is an endless flood of salesmen - some benevolent, some charlatans - trying to sell the next fix.

The problem is as pointed out by Alan Kay among others that software engineering as a discipline seems to be a pop culture that always is uncritically on the lookout for the next methodology promoted by it's inventor. Without a hint of criticism or self reflection.

You’d have as much credibility if you blame it on fluoridation of water as blame it on capitalism.

What makes you say that the current culture and fads in some software companies has anything to do with capitalism?

It was the same in communist countries, even more so. If anything, we’re having less of this now that we switched to capitalism than before.

You'll probably get downvoted for mentioning this, but capitalism is a big factor here.

It's not so much about selling books and farming engagement. It's about commodification of labor. The "best practices" tend to cater to the lowest common denominator to get at least something done. This lowers bargaining power of labor, drives down wages and increases capital's share of the pie.

This is inevitable in capitalism. Happens to all crafts. This is why we can have cheap crap but not nice things.