I think it's more base than this; in order to be valued you have to be seen as useful. This is only somewhat related to being actually useful. Workers who haven't drunk the company Kool-Aid have realized that their own personal value is maximized by giving priority to work that is visible over doing the best or most work.
> in order to be valued you have to be seen as useful
My point is, that's a characteristic of liberal (individualist, meritocratic) paradigm. In other paradigms, your value comes from something else than usefulness. In authoritarian (patriarchal) system, your value is inherent in your (or your family) social status, like your wealth. And in egalitarian (collectivist) system, you're valued (but also less so) inherently by virtue of being part of the group.
Is this really a criticism of market driven systems? Performative works is more of an issue with huge corporations -- while these exist in market economies, internally to the company is not a market economy. Usually they're somewhere on the line between authoritarian and collectivist internally, and the performative fake work looks like the way you cheat in authoritarian and/or collectivist economies.
When your coworkers are people you have to compete with to get a raise or bonus (as most companies have some quota system for that), then your performative work becomes a marketable asset. Even if the work is properly 'measured' to filter performative busywork, the market is the promotional system and you are the product. I don't think this is unique to big corporations; brown-nosers, back-stabbers, and sucking up has existed in orgs of any size.
In the workplace you should consider your coworkers your teammates; not your competition. A rising tide should lift all boats. Where there is competition there is inequality. This is what the person you're replying to is most likely getting at. Unfortunately, we do not live under such a system today. We are penned against one another to compete until we retire or die.
In the "free market" system, there is huge amount of performative work done - think of advertising and PR. This type of information manipulation is an unintented result of direct competition.
This culture then seeps into large companies, which are trying to emulate it with things like OKRs and company-wide metrics and comparisons.
Earlier, companies were more authoritarian in the sense that understanding of your performance was more at your direct boss discretion, but that brings another problem - nepotism. This is bureacratically simpler but the boss becomes a weak link of "fairness". IOW, people "had their place" in the hierarchy, and it was changing slower (if at all) with their actual contribution.
In collectivist systems (which are distinct from authoritarian ones, and are not typical for firms, unless you have something like a cooperative), on the other hand, selfish people just tune out directly, without need to perform or schmooze with bosses, because there is too little practical repercussions for doing so. During socialism in my country, there was often little pretense that people are not making an effort - because there was little you could do about it.
The reality is always some mix of the three, but I think multi-decadal shift from authoritarian to liberal (while collectivist stagnated) explains the rise of performative work across society. Because status is now more frequently measured rather than remaining stable.
My point is, systems have trade-offs, neither is perfect. Selfish people will adapt to any of them. Although (as a leftist) I would personally prefer less liberal and more collectivist approach to status.
