I've witnessed more than a little of this. I worked in a university, in a library (though not as a librarian), and realized that everyone at a certain level or above in administration Came From Money. While "has a house in another country" is not subtle, "father was on an Everest expedition" is. Once I began noticing this soft ceiling I could not help but see it everywhere in the university. Meritoriousness was not on the menu and it took me entirely too long to "get" that I was locked out of promotion and that it was just a way to keep me dancing like a little dog standing up for a treat.

The "bundle of tradeoffs," which is a more humane and human way of thinking, is at odds with the "cog in the machine" approach which began with interchangeable machined parts and progressed on to the human element. Being replaceable then becomes a prized characteristic. Indeed, one of the administrative staff suggested that anyone who seemed like they were too valuable to replace ought to be let go on those grounds alone. It's a recipe for a kind of predictable mediocrity.

Business loves predictable mediocrity, and we see it in various forms of intellectual property. Why sell a copy of Office for unlimited use when you can charge monthly and predict out your next few quarters? Own a movie? No, rent. And as academic institutions continue their transformation into administratively bloated credential assembly lines, we will see more business-y strategies worm their way in.