>They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.[...]"

And it was a resounding success. They got everything they wanted and then some. Look at HN, a community that considers itself broadly smarter than the average citizen/voter. Even it's knee jerk reaction is to solve any given problem using "more system" (typically public, but often private as well).