[p_l]

And I think it's the other way around - aggressive, sleazy sales culture coincided with western world use of business cards (and thus rolodexes), tainting somewhat accepted earlier "paper relationship management tools" - visiting cards, address books, etc. - which also had the issue of being more accessible only to the wealthier classes.

Personally I can recall both tropes of "well connected person" having all kinds of tools to keep track of contact details and thus being able to "get things done" (which was somewhat neutral on nature of the relationships) and the sleazyball salesman who happened to use similar tools.