One fun experiment would be for a company to place all it's middle managers on gardening leave. For a year. Give them the same ability to influence as that of a very minority shareholder (i.e. none).
Then see how the bottom line fares. I see three outcomes:
1. Profits are down. Those managers added value after all.
2. Profits about the same. Those managers added nothing.
3. Profits up!! Those managers were dragging them down the whole time. Who knew?
Letting highly paid employees go is, of course, expensive. But in 2 out of those 3 scenarios the company can afford to simply keep them on gardening leave indefinitely.
That there are three outcomes does not mean they are equally likely.
Oh, and additional possible outcomes (IMO both more likely than yours):
4. the company disintegrates into complete chaos and goes bankrupt before the year is half over.
5. the remaining employees self-organize and the more ambitious among them end up doing exactly what the middle managers were doing before.
What will happen is massive ugly in-fighting among professionals over turfs, who is responsible for what, whose faults what is. Eventually, winners of that cut the throat and backstab fight will take the role of middle managers.
Then see how the bottom line fares. I see three outcomes:
Letting highly paid employees go is, of course, expensive. But in 2 out of those 3 scenarios the company can afford to simply keep them on gardening leave indefinitely.