This sounds familiar

[pasithea]

Didn't this happen in some other country once?

http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/12/26/japans-animation-industry-hollowing-out

Comments

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

This throwaway intro line annoyed me, even though I know it's a total aside and not relevant:

This division of planning/development/design and production would be natural in a normal manufacturing industry.

I don't agree with that assertion at all; I don't see why laborers shouldn't have some say in how their labor is used. But to express that in a capitalist society is heresy, and if you say 'worker control' you're a big commie and you want to put up a statue of Karl Marx in the reflecting pool in Washington DC. And maybe it's just me, but I feel this might be indicative of the snobbery among creative people and educated people generally. The attitude is, common workers aren't really creating anything, they're just trained apes, so their rights don't need to be protected. Never mind that industrialization made workers into interchangeable cogs; it's a given that this disenfranchisement must continue. Well, now they're doing it to white-collar workers, too... how do ya like it, geniuses?