"Managers mandated themselves into making x times the amount of their top paid report, control decision making, and have hiring and firing powers all in one position."

I'm curious where you work (not specifically, I'm talking about generally the industry), because it's not been my experience either as a manager nor my understanding of anyone else in silicon valley or large or mid sized software companies. I've managed engineers who get paid more than me, never have had unilateral hiring or firing powers, and don't control much decision making power other than my ability to hopefully influence engineers or upper management.

I could imagine your case being true in other places (finance, for example) where managers usually aren't engineers and there is much more of a fiefdom organizational structure, but it hasn't been my experience in software.

I work in Fintech. On average, managers make more than their reports and heavily influence how much their reports make. Just based on levels.fyi managers earn a base of $40k over their engineering equivalent, with a higher bonus and stock margin as well (at my company). My company also doesn't position technical leaders at the same level as their manager, so technical leaders are already in an odd position when trying to represent the team. Generally I've figured out that many managers don't know what "influencing" is, so it starts to feel like "pressuring" from someone who doesn't understand the product from a technical perspective. I don't think any of this is uncommon to the larger software landscape, but certain companies may hire better managers than others.

> The problem is there's zero incentive for managers to listen or change.

Yeah, there is now only incentive to get rid of you since you are having a negative impact on the manager's (perceived) success, and you have also banned yourself from ever being promoted to management by being disloyal.