> Let me try to bring some perspective into the discussion. Lest somebody misunderstand, the very essence of an enterprise (any enterprise) is that it is a bundle of labour and capital whose essential structure and identity is independent of and more persistent than the labour it employs. The identity behind its labour component is no more important than the identity of its capital component.
I'm afraid, sir or madam, that your very opening statements show exactly why engineers will disagree with the entire rest of your statement. You've redefined a common word with a well understood social and legal meaning. Your definition reflects a business school philosophy that does not match either the common or the legal meaning. And it breaks down very, very quickly in the real world.
> It is for this reason that any contemporary HR policy is aimed at (and this is important) divorcing the work from specific individuals.
Nonsense. This guarantees failure in the long run for a tech business. It can work for Wal-Mart or even McDonald's or even non-technologically innovative business, such as spam advertising and domain squatting. There are profound evolutionary economic pressures against it for the more interesting or leading edge technologies. Networking tools and hardware, lab instruments, software virtualization, and systems security are examples that require insight and mastery to improve designs and remain effective and profitable..
> So it's up for debate really, and this isn't a new debate. It's a debate about a basic balance in our society that needs to be realigned from time to time.
And it's vital to know what the debate is really about. Please do not try to redefine basic terms in ways that obscure the actual debates. It's framing the question in a way that is misleading and helps prevent understanding of the underlying problem.