Dr Neville Buch
Abstract
Fair employment is systematically subverted by the “credential currency” of modern technocracy, which prioritizes institutional conformity and mechanistic utility over genuine intellectual capacity. The question of who does not get fairly employed reveals two primary groups: the highly “overqualified” intellectual (the scholar) and the systematically marginalized (based on gender, ethnicity, or lacking specific “cultural capital”). The causes are rooted in credential inflation, where degrees function as “patents of education” to monopolize positions rather than certify skills. Furthermore, the “drone-isation” identified by the observer is theorized by scholars as the technicisation of cognition, a process where human authorship is replaced by purposive-rational action and “calculability,” leading to a workforce that is easier for managers to control but intellectually hollowed. Ultimately, the lack of fair employment for the highly skilled is an organizational defence mechanism designed to protect positional property and maintain normative control.
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The Credential Trap: Credentialism, Technocracy, and the Erasure of the Intellectual
I. The Economic Error of the “Job-Ready” Intellectual
The experience of being “overqualified” in the mid-1990s Australian economy is a classic manifestation of credential inflation. As Randall Collins argues, educational certificates act as a currency of social respectability used to trade for access to jobs. When the supply of these certificates increases, their value inevitably declines, forcing individuals to seek even higher degrees to maintain their relative position. In this system, the Ph.D. often ceases to be a mark of scholarly achievement and instead becomes a “barrier to entry” that managers use to limit the supply of candidates.
The argument of being “overqualified” frequently masks a deeper structural reality: the technocratic model assumes a linear link between education and productivity that does not exist in practice. In fact, most vocational skills—even at high levels—are learned through informal networks and on-the-job experience. Consequently, the scholar who possesses deep interdisciplinary understanding and reflective self-criticism is often viewed not as an asset, but as a disruption to a system that requires “satisficing” (average performance) rather than optimization.
II. Managerial Arrogance and the Need for Normative Control
The observer’s assertion that managers fear those who “know more than they do” aligns with the sociological theory of normative control. Organizations are fundamentally structures of power, and the primary challenge for authorities is ensuring the active cooperation and loyalty of members. This is often achieved not by hiring the most skilled, but by selecting those with the “proper” values and cultural backgrounds.
Managers rely on informal networks and “personality” traits to coordinate complex tasks. A highly educated scholar, possessing a synoptic vision and the capacity for rational-critical communication, may be perceived as a threat to the managerial bubble. By hiring “drones”—or those who conform to narrow, operational goals—managers protect their positional property, ensuring that their own authority is never called into question by a subordinate with superior analytical depth.
III. The “Drone-isation” of the Workforce: Technicisation and Non-Knowledge
What the observer calls “drone-isation” is described by Bernard Stiegler as the immense regression into absolute non-knowledge. In modern industrial civilization, technics evolves more quickly than culture, leading to a state where decision-making and anticipation are delegated to technical complexes or “machines”. This results in the technicisation of language and thought, where communicative action (aimed at mutual understanding) is replaced by purposive-rational action (aimed at efficiency and control).
In this environment, workers are reduced to “Träger” (bearers) of social roles or data sets. The “Job Ready” ideology epitomizes this, reducing the complex potential of a human being to a measurable output designed for a specific niche in the market. Intellectuals and scholars who resist this reduction—asserting their human authorship and freedom of thought—find themselves excluded from high-level employment because they cannot be easily “calculated” or “programmed” by the system.
Who Does Not Get Fairly Employed?
The sources indicate that those excluded from fair employment generally fall into three categories:
- The “Energy-Rich” Intellectual Outsider: Scholars whose cultural capital and emotional energy are directed toward systemic critique rather than institutional preservation are often denied the “floor” in the attention space of major organizations.
- The Systematically Marginalized: Groups historically excluded from elite “consciousness communities,” including women, Aboriginal Australians, and ethnic minorities, who lack the specific social capital (the “right” schools and clubs) that grants entry into the upper-middle-class administrative sector.
- The “Incurably Skilled” Productive Labourer: Workers who prioritize productive labour (real outcomes) over political labour (manipulating appearances and alliances) are often stuck in lower rungs, as the highest rewards in modern organizations go to the “organizational politicians”.
- Conclusion: The Vocation of the Unemployed Scholar
The failure of the Australian Federal Government 1995 Review and subsequent thirty years of “managerialism” suggests that the Australian academy and economy have yet to grasp why the role of the intellectual is minimized. To be “fairly employed” in a technocratic society often requires a sacrifice of the self to the “coldness of calculation”.
The solution, as proposed by the emerging framework of the Contributory Economy, is to shift away from profit-driven “drone” systems toward models that value noodiversity (knowledge diversity linked to locality) and human flourishing. Until then, the scholar remains a “pharmakos” (scapegoat)—the individual onto whom a community projects its anxieties about a rapidly changing, technologically driven world.
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Dynamic of Cognition (DoC) Analysis: The Credential Trap and the Drone-isation of Work
| DoC Component | Analysis of the “Credential Trap” (Regression) | Proposed Reflective Ascent (Comprehension) |
| Prejudice (Centre) | Technocratic Model: The ingrained and false assumption that there is a linear, necessary link between formal educational credentials and on-the-job productivity. | Practical Realism: Recognizing the “economic error” of credentialism by acknowledging that most vocational skills are acquired through informal networks and experience. |
| Attitudes (Thinking/Extrovert) | Managerial Arrogance: A fear-based institutional culture that prioritizes “drones” and conformists over highly skilled scholars to protect “positional property”. | Rational-Critical Communication: Shifting from “purposive-rational action” (aimed at control) toward communicative action aimed at mutual, intersubjective understanding. |
| Typologies of Value (Feeling/Introvert) | Calculability and Utility: Reducing the complex potential of human beings to measurable outputs and data sets, treating workers as mere “bearers” (Träger) of roles. | Human Authorship: Affirming the individual as the author of their own existence and valuing the “energy-rich” intellectual outsider as a vital source of systemic critique. |
| Exclusion (Sensation/Intuition) | Historical Forgetfulness: An “immense regression” into “absolute non-knowledge” where the technical and social history of labour and ideas is banished. | Noodiversity: Reclaiming “knowledge diversity” linked to specific localities to break the “managerial bubble” and the monopoly of the credential currency. |
| Inclusion (Thinking/Feeling) | Sociological Propaganda: The use of degrees as “patents of education” to enforce normative control and exclude those who lack specific “cultural capital”. | Contributory Economy: Building a social framework that prioritizes “human flourishing” and interdisciplinary overview to ensure institutional accountability. |
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Analogy: The Credential Trap is like a toll booth on a bridge to a workshop; the toll (the degree) does not provide the tools or the skill to use them, but it grants the only legal right to cross the water. The gatekeepers (managers) are less concerned with how well the bridge is built and more concerned that no one with a superior map (the scholar) arrives to show that the toll is a manufactured fiction.
Featured Image: Controlling-Employment.png
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