[kbolino]

The Peter Principle might be downstream of the Monotonic Pay Scale, where it is expected that a person who manages others must be paid more than any of them. Conversely, no matter how good you are or how much money you are making the business, you will reach a point where your pay is effectively capped unless you transition to management.

The government suffers from this especially, despite an ostensibly very different incentive structure. The explosion in government contractors (by which I mean, individuals indirectly employed to do jobs in lieu of direct hires) seems to be driven in no small part by this problem.