The 'M.B.A.-ization' of the corporate west -- it's not just the U.S. where this is happening -- is in some ways a specific example of a more general problem in which professions that just don't need robust credentialism aspired to do just that. They wanted to seem as important as the medical or engineering disciplines were. There are very valid reasons we don't just let anyone design a bridge or prescribe medicine. We make people who aspire to do that jump through a bunch of hoops to protect all of society from the downside risk that would follow if we didn't do this. In return, society confers on these people prestigious credentials so only they can perform medical duties and professional engineering tasks.

Universities just so happened to be a practically convenient location for medical doctors and professional engineers to get their education. But universities were never supposed to be general vocational learning institutions.

Business schools are just one department in a long line who wanted to push the notion that people need to jump through their hoops to learn a particular discipline well enough to perform a role professionally. Nothing could be further from the truth and in pushing this myth, they've helped contribute to systemic fault lines that could ultimately undermine western society and democracy itself. They've heavily indebted learning that people were traditionally paid to do via apprenticeship. They have invented credentials for disciplines which don't need them and offer no financial path to ever provide a return on the learning investment. They've promoted the idea that useful learning can only happen within their walls and under their syllabus.

But I'm off on a tangent. Business schools specifically have essentially been cosplaying as something they are not: schools teaching a rigourous applied science. As Medical School is to Biology, Math and Chemistry, Business School is to Economics. But economics as a social science had just not advanced far enough along to provide meaningful insight. So business schools did the next best thing which was to create the illusion of an advanced science by helping backfill, promote, and apply bullshit economic theory. This went hand-in-hand with a conscious effort to create prestige like the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science.

But the illusion is starting to all fall apart under the scrutiny of disastrous political policies, gutted zombie corporations, and a broken social contract, all under their direct sphere of influence. The irony is that in aspiring to have the same prestige as doctors and engineers, business schools have actually done far more damage to society, the environment, and our future than they could have hoped to imagine if they went back to their traditional proprietary school roots.

Business schools are very worried that society will realize that being a smart autodidact is a better recipe for success in business than paying six figures to earn an M.B.A..

If this rant resonated with you, here's an interview with the author of book, called Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/10/04/author-discus...