>but now the employees think they're "sticking it to the man" by... doing their jobs???

I think you got your definitions wrong. The definition im thinking of is skating by on the barest of minimums as to not arouse suspicion. Whether that is doing your job depends on who you ask.

>There is no loss of power, there is no dynamic shift, there is no loss of profits whatsoever.

You are essentially arguing that all the extra effort that employees expended to show that they are "go getters" amounted to no value creation at all. That is absurd just on the face of it.

But lets say you are totally right...then good, its one thing that employees and employers can agree on then. Employees do that absolute bare minimum to not arouse suspicion and employers pay them.

I'm looking forward to the multitude of innovations that employees will come up with to do the absolute bare minimum. Its like the area under a curve. We need to get closer and closer to the bottom of that curve. Thats where my favorite category of American innovation lies. Things such as the mouse jiggler are amateur hour.

Yeah, that's exactly how we called it in the USSR. Employer pretends they are paying, employees pretend they are working. How it's ended is well known.

The US is going through the same extreme as the USSR did, just in the other direction. I'm sure given the nature of extremes there will be some similarities on the journey to the outcome even if the overall outcome might end up being different due to the US heading off the cliff in the other direction.

We definitely have a situation now where employer pays as shit as possible and workers provides the shittiest effort as possible.